‘Visionary policies are urgently needed’
– Des Donnelly, new homes director at Hooke & MacDonald
The outlook for the new homes market contains numerous positives and opportunities. Most importantly we have a highly efficient and dedicated building industry that is ready, willing and able to produce significantly higher volumes of new homes.
However, it is dependent on policymakers to produce and implement with more urgency the measures needed to fix the flawed planning system, to fast-track investment in infrastructure, to zone many thousands of more acres for housing and to introduce incentives to attract back Irish and international pension and other institutional funds into housing delivery, especially the apartment sector in urban locations for both owner-occupiers and tenants.
The lack of viability for apartment construction has been acknowledged by the Government with the introduction of the Croí Cónaithe (Cities) Scheme, which facilitates apartment purchases by owner-occupiers by bridging the gap between construction costs and sale prices.
Further measures such as section 23-type tax incentives for purchasers could considerably ramp up apartment supply in urban locations, as it did in the past, successfully increasing the stock of rental accommodation over a short period. It proved to be a sound concept until politicians applied it in non-urban locations.
A number of government schemes are greatly helping aspiring homeowners to achieve their goals, especially the Help to Buy scheme, the First Home scheme and the Affordable Purchase scheme.
The strong Irish economy and our stable political system should support the expansion of our new homes supply to help meet demographic requirements in 2026 and beyond. However, visionary policies are urgently needed to provide the volume and variety of typologies that are required to house all sections of the Irish population.
Source: The Irish Times