Government measures spark rise in housing stock

THERE has been a lot of negative commentary about the outlook for Ireland’s residential property market in recent weeks and months. However, there are some positive stories beginning to emerge. For instance, although stock levels are low, we are overlooking the fact that there are over 25pc more new homes developments listed in Dublin today than there were this time last year. In Cork, the figure is up 10pc.

Just one listing — on property portals such as MyHome.ie and Daft.ie — will be used to sell tens, if not hundreds, of units at a time, so there is a significant volume of stock being supplied at these new developments which isn’t captured in the numbers. For instance, at Alderlie in Adamstown, Dublin, Savills has agreed approximately 140 sales from just one listing. This indicates that it is likely that there are now more properties for sale today than there were this time last year.

Savills has witnessed an unprecedented level of enquiries for property for sale in the first quarter of 2017. Over 6,000 parties registered for a limited number of units being sold in the greater Dublin area, with an accumulated €2.8bn in capital to spend.

The Cork office has experienced a three-fold increase in enquiries. Encouragingly, the immediate result of this is that developers have reviewed their build programmes and will be considerably increasing the number of units they expected to supply to the market this year in response to that demand.

The knock-on effect of this is that there has been a three-fold increase in the number of homes Savills has sale-agreed in the first quarter of the year, while the Property Price Register shows the sale of over 50pc more new homes completed in this same period.

So the good news is that the Help-to-Buy scheme introduced by the Government is having one of its intended results — increasing stock levels.

So what should a prospective buyer do? At Savills, we are advising them not to panic. Our outlook for the year is very positive. We have a very active pipeline of new homes stock coming to the market to suit all price points, much of which is well ahead of schedule due to these favourable market conditions.

If you are bidding on a second-hand unit, make sure you are not influenced by the headlines – do your own research, bid to a level that the property is worth rather than to the maximum amount that you can afford.

Finally, and most importantly, don’t be afraid to wait — credit is still being restricted with the 3.5 LTI cap, so it is only excess personal cash in the form of savings that will push prices up, and the control of that lies solely with you, the purchaser.

‘The good news is that the Help-to-Buy scheme is having one of its intended results — increasing stock levels’