Around half of Irish construction companies have stopped building houses as they attempt to offload existing properties, according to a survey announced today.
Some 30 per cent said the oversupply of houses will take "more than 12 months to clear,'' Dublin-based Merrion Capital said today.
Of those companies not building, 50 per cent do not expect to restart work for at least a year, it said.
Higher borrowing costs and falling property prices have slowed home buying in Ireland, prompting builders to halt work and let workers go. Irish construction contracted at a record pace in April, and the Government estimates that house completions may fall by more than a third this year.
"The overall conclusion from the survey is that house builders expect the downturn in the Irish new residential market to be deeper and more prolonged than they anticipated,'' Merrion said.
Some 73 per cent of respondents said selling prices will decline this year, compared with 23 per cent in the previous survey late last year. Forty per cent see housing output falling by more than half this year from 78,000 in 2007 and there is a "high degree of uncertainty over 2009,'' with a majority of respondents expecting no increase in completions.
Merrion conducted the survey of 25 companies, which build more than 15 houses a year, in the past week.