Longford's residential stock continues to rise

Prepared by EY-DKM Economic Advisory on behalf of GeoDirectory, nationally, 24,773 new residential dwellings were added to the GeoDirectory database the past twelve months, representing 1.2% of the total national residential housing stock.

Over 50% of the total new addresses were added in the Greater Dublin Area, with 7,319 (29.5%) of these found in county Dublin.

At the other end of the scale, Leitrim recorded the fewest new addresses, adding only 93. Longford (109), Cavan (164), Offaly (203) and Roscommon (230) rounded out the five counties in the country with the fewest new addresses.

The report shows that 77 buildings were under construction in Longford in June 2019. Nationally, 14,107 buildings were classified as under construction last month, a 52.5% increase on the same period last year.

Residential construction activity in Ireland in June 2019 (14,107) compares favourably to previous years, with 9,251 residential buildings under construction in 2018, 5,966 in 2017, 4,375 in 2016 and 3,786 in 2015.

Almost a third of buildings under construction were located in Dublin (30.1%), while the Greater Dublin Area accounted for over half of total construction activity (51.5%). Construction activity was weakest in Connacht and Ulster, recording only 8.7% and 4.7% of the overall total respectively.

There were 424 residential property transactions in Longford, in the twelve months to April 2019, with an average price of €115,330. 6.8% of these were for new properties. Longford town is the town with the highest average property price in the county.

Almost 55,000 residential properties were purchased in Ireland in the twelve months to April 2019, of which 21.1% were for new properties.

This is 2.1 percentage points higher than the same period last year. In commuter counties such as Meath (40.2%), Kildare (34.7%) and Wicklow (25.4%) the proportion of new properties purchased was much higher than the national average.

Nationally, the average house price in the twelve months to April 2019 was €289,146, an increase of €15,940 or 5.8% on the 2018 figure. Once Dublin is excluded, the average house price is €214,679.

The county with the lowest average property price was Longford at €115,330, followed by neighbouring counties Leitrim (€116,468) and Donegal (€122,953).

The vacancy rate in Longford in June 2019 stood at 10.2%, higher than the national average of 4.8%.

The East-West divide in terms of vacant residential properties is still apparent. Counties in the north-west of the country recorded the highest vacancy rates with Leitrim (15.2%), Roscommon (13.3%), Mayo (12.9%), Sligo (10.4%) and Donegal (10.4%) all featuring in the top five.

“The construction industry is rising to the challenge of demand for housing, but it is clear that there is still some way to go to reach the required level of supply,” said Dara Keogh, Chief Executive, GeoDirectory.

“Construction activity levels are almost four times higher than this stage in 2015 and this is reflected in the number of new property purchases.”