Housing completions up 19% as momentum carries forward from 2022

The number of homes completed in the first quarter of 2023 was more than 19 per cent ahead of the same period last year as the construction sector carried forward some of the 2022 momentum into the new year.

There were 6,716 new dwelling completions in the State in the first three months of the year, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) said on Wednesday, with apartments accounting for 36.1 per cent of the total, “the first time since [2011] that they made up more than a third of quarterly completions”. Scheme dwellings, essentially housing estates, accounted for 3,092 (46.1 per cent) of the new homes and 2,427 (17.8 per cent) were single dwellings.

Apartments also saw the biggest annual increase, up 41 per cent from the first quarter of last year while scheme unit completions were up by more than 10 per cent and single dwelling completions increase by 7.7 per cent.

“Apartment completions in the quarter are more than double what they were three years ago and over five times higher when compared with five years ago,” CSO statistician Justin Anderson said.

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On a seasonally adjusted basis, there was a more modest 4.9 per cent rise in the number of completions from the final three months of 2022 to the end of March to 7,809. But there was a larger 23.9 per cent relative rise in the number of apartments completed quarter-on-quarter on the same basis, the CSO said, with smaller increases in the number of completed scheme units and single dwellings.

Close to 30,000 units were completed in 2022, a 45 per cent increase from 2021 when the construction sector was hamstrung by Covid-related public health restrictions.

Welcoming the figures, Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien said: ““All of this positive momentum builds on the back of a record 7,349 homes commenced in the first three months of 2023. There is also a strong pipeline of social and affordable housing, with over 19,000 social homes at various stages of construction and over 2,700 more affordable homes already approved for funding.”

But many analysts doubt that the performance can be repeated this year, with the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland estimating last month that around 27,000 units will be completed in 2023.

Analysts from Goodbody Stockbrokers warned last month that while the supply of housing is expected to remain “stable” this year, housing starts are “flatlining”. Forecasting a decline in output compared with last year, they said the level output remains “substantially below Ireland’s estimated housing need”.

The Government’s Housing for All strategy commits it to completing an average of 33,000 new homes each year for the rest of the decade to meet estimated demand. However, there is growing consensus that these targets will have to be revised due, in part, to population increases and demographic factors.