THOUGH THE house-building industry is still in limbo there are a few signs of life on the horizon as building costs continue to decline and site values in Dublin seem close to bottoming out.

Building activity in the past few years has been largely confined to completing partially-built estates but now happily a few builders are putting their heads above the parapet.

Take John McGreevy, who is building 61 two- and three-bedroom terraced houses in Lucan in the expectation that there will be a shortfall of starter homes as opposed to apartments. Savills has already begun taking names for the houses which will be competitively priced between €150,000 and €190,000.

On the opposite side of the city, Frank Fahy’s Shannon Homes (Dublin) is building no less than 99 apartments on a site close to St Raphaela’s school in Stillorgan where he sold over 100 large family homes when the market was hopping. Fahy is expected to hold on to the apartments and put them on the rental market when they are completed.

Also busy are the Sorohan brothers who are proceeding with the second phase of their Trimbleston development in Clonskeagh.

They company was apparently anxious to hold on to a loyal workforce and opted to proceed with 85 more apartments near the entrance to the site off Clonskeagh Road.

Good luck to them.