Few ‘affordable’ homes for under €280,000 despite State funding

FEW “affordable” homes developed using State funding will be sold for less than €280,000 in the capital, it has emerged.

While housing schemes facilitated with public money outside Dublin will include units costed at less than €280,000, most will be above this price threshold in Dublin, the Department of Housing has said.

This means that families with joint incomes of up to €80,000 will find it difficult to afford any of these units under Central Bank lending rules that limit mortgage borrowings to 3.5 times income.

The latest data from the Central Statistics Office shows that the median, or average, price paid for a new home in the State currently stands at €284,999. In Dublin, it’s €329,604.

Last March, the Government announced a €226m Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund to be used to build roads, bridges and other services needed to open sites for development. In return for the cash, developers had to provide social and affordable housing.

In response to a parliamentary question from Sinn Féin’s housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin, the department confirmed that final approval had been given for 22 of 34 projects in line for funding, which will deliver 11,880 units of which

2,200 will be social homes. The developments are located in Cork, where new homes average €289,950 according to the CSO; Dublin, Kildare (€308,999), Kilkenny (no price available), Limerick

(€223,951), Louth (€242,500),

Meath (€279,537), Waterford

(€186,787) and Westmeath

(€297,499). No projects have yet been approved in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, where house prices are among the most expensive in the State.

Mr Ó Broin asked how many homes on each approved site would be sold for less than

€260,000; between €261,000 and €280,000; between

€281,000 and €300,000; and

€301,000-€320,000. Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy said there was either a “proportionate reduction” across all houses in each development, or a specified number of homes which would benefit from a larger price cut.

“The approved projects outside Dublin are likely to have new homes for sale towards the lower end of the bands identified by the deputy, while the projects in Dublin are likely to have starter homes available towards the middle and upper end of these bands,” Mr Murphy said.

Mr Ó Broin said it appeared no homes at “genuinely affordable levels” would be delivered. “It appears that there will be no homes at genuinely affordable levels in Dublin, between €170,000 and €260,000,” he said. “The situation outside Dublin is less clear but still very concerning.”

He said the Government had previously said that funding would not be approved for schemes that did not deliver units at affordable prices.

“I am calling on Minister Murphy to honour this commitment and not fund private developments with public money unless they have homes for sale below €160,000 in Dublin and at appropriately lower levels outside the capital,” he added.

The Department of Housing said developers were asked to make homes “more affordable”. If they were required to deliver units for under €280,000 in Dublin, it would have made development “impossible”.

It added that Dublin local authorities had been asked to provide “as much affordability as possible” on sites in areas including Kilcarbery and Adamstown in South Dublin, and it was “confident” of securing affordable units in other areas.