This article is from page 2 of the 2008-04-22 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 2 JPG
FURTHER evidence of a downturn in the Clare housing market emerged yesterday with figures for house completions in the county for the first quarter of this year dropping by Boma tle
The drop in Clare from 556 last year to 346 this year is higher than the national drop of 29 per cent over the same period. The number of house completions in Clare in March was 94 – almost half the 197 output for March of 2007. The completions for March are significantly down on February and January of this year.
152 houses were built in Febru- ary, down 237 on the correspond- ing month last year. The number of homes built in January was 100, down on the 122 built in January 2007.
The downturn in house completions coincides with “reduced reserve” signs being placed on properties around the county. Many sellers are not securing the prices they forecast for their property.
At last night’s meeting of Clare County Council, a number of coun- cillors said the country was now en- tering a recession with the downturn in the housing sector.
Cllr PJ Kelly (FF), Cllr Tony O’Brien (FF) and Clir Tommy Bren- nan (FF) all raised the spectre of re- cession when discussing new house levies. NUI Galway economist Prof Alan Ahern also offered a downbeat assessment of the market when he said that property downturns nor- mally lasted five years.
Figures released by Homebond show that the number of new house starts in Limerick, Clare and Tipper- ary for the first quarter of this year is 337. This compares to 1,155 new house starts for the same period last year, a drop of 818 or 71 per cent.
Figures for March confirm the con-
tinuing slow-down in house building in the region.
Homebond, which covers 75 per cent of new house registrations, has found only 23 new homes were start- ed in Limerick during last month, a drop on the 194 started in January 2007.
The number of new house starts in Clare dropped from 113 in March 2007 to 55 last year. In Tipperary, the number of new houses built dropped from 138 to 97.
The building industry has attrib- uted the massive downturn in house starts in March to the Easter holidays falling earlier than usual this year.