A lot done, an awful lot more to do before supply of new homes meets demand

It seems barely a week goes by these days without some “news” of the Government’s latest plan to deliver more new homes.

From converting offices owned by the Office of Public Works (OPW) for residential use to removing RTÉ from its privileged perch in Dublin 4 to make way for social and affordable housing, it would appear everything is now within the realm of possibility as the general election looms ever closer on the horizon. But such possibilities, even if they were to come to fruition, would do little to bring new-home completions to the conservative number of 34,000 units which the Central Bank said in 2020 would be required each year until 2030 to meet demand.

And while the latest figures from the Department of Housing show that new-home commencement notices hit 2,770 in August, an increase of 30.6 per cent on the 2,121 units commenced in the same month last year, it’s still too little and it’s still too late.

For as much as Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien might like to talk about how the Government’s grandly titled plan – Housing for All – is working, it needs to work much harder to address the now decade-long crisis created and presided over by its two main coalition partners.

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A 30.6 per cent year-on-year increase in new-home commencements may look like a lot, but it’s coming from a low base. Add to that the fact that of the 2,770 new homes that the Government would like us to applaud them for, less than 30 per cent are ever likely to make it to the open market, where they can be purchased by the “squeezed middle”, “coping classes”, or by “people who get up early in the morning”, as Taoiseach Leo Varadkar termed them in his campaign to become leader of Fine Gael in 2017.

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Indeed, according to research produced earlier this year by housing expert and senior lecturer at TUD School of Surveying & Construction Management, Dr Lorcan Sirr, just 8,590 homes, or 28.7 per cent of the 29,851 units built last year, were sold to individual buyers. The lion’s share of new homes, 71.3 per cent, were acquired by institutions invested in the private-rented sector (PRS) market and Government-supported buyers made up of approved housing bodies (AHBs) and local authorities involved in the delivery of social and affordable, and cost-rental housing.

While we must make room for both a professionally run rental sector and for social housing, we have a serious problem when the buying power of their respective purchasers, institutional investors and the State serves to curtail or drive up the price of the new homes available to those looking to buy on the open market.

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There are of course some provisions in place – the Help-to Buy (HTB) and First Home (shared-equity) Scheme – to assist aspiring homeowners who don’t qualify for social housing. But these measures, as helpful as they can be, can only be used if there is a new home available to buy, and at the right price.

As our new-homes special supplement shows today, there is, as someone once said, a lot done but more to do to increase supply. And this Government, and the one that follows it, must do everything in their respective terms to ensure that happens.