By Conor Power,Irishexaminer.com

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“It’s not just First Time Buyers who are feeling the effects of this – it’s students, families, people with disabilities… everyone in the country.  “We just need unprecedented measures, similar to when we had the Covid crisis; we need that level of success for housing.” 

With supply still the fundamental problem throughout the country, there are green shoots visible in different parts around the country, with Cork city and county possibly faring better than most other parts of Ireland.

The head of IPAV remains hopeful that supply will continue to make progress and that Government supports will remain in place:  “From a Government perspective, we’re hoping that we continue to incentivise construction, particularly the small and medium-sized builders,” says Genevieve.

“They currently aren’t using the Finance Ireland loans because they’re too high for the smaller builders… we’re missing the smaller builders in small towns in Ireland. 

“If every other town had a handful of builders that would build small amounts of houses, we’d meet our target in no time, so I’m hoping that Government will find a way of incentivising these small builders.” 

Stock increases in another busy year

Supply is still at a very low ebb but there has been a good deal of activity in getting developments out of the ground, with an increasing amount of concrete evidence on show and on sale in Munster. 

It is the first-time buyer sector that is the best placed to find a suitable home in today’s market. Market conditions may not have improved in any dramatic fashion over the last 12 months, but the FTB is getting the best of it and is now witnessing some new property emerging – both on plan and on the ground. 

“We’ve seen a very strong year for sales to date across all developments,” says Elizabeth Hegarty, Divisional Director at Savills in Cork. “Stock levels have increased across Cork city and country offering increased options for the buyer. Sentiment is good, with the buyer having more choice on location, house types and developments. 

“Right now, there is the largest number of new developments on the market than there has been in many years. East Cork is particularly active, with several new developments coming out of the ground in the Midleton area. It has also been refreshing to see two apartment developments come to market under the Croí Cónaithe Cities scheme. Savills are selling The View in Douglas for Cairn Homes, which has seen over 90 sales of one-bed and two-bedroom apartments this summer. It’s a really welcome addition to the market that enables a lot of buyers secure a home.” 

“While we’re a long way from normality, there have definitely been more new schemes coming online this year,” says Paul Hannon, Director at  Sherry Fitzgerald New Homes. “There’s definitely a choice there for them… we’ve a lot of new schemes coming through this autumn.” 

These include Park Laurence; an 86-home scheme in Kinsale being built by Hatley Construction. It’s a mix of 2-bed, 3-bed and 4-bedroom houses that will be coming onstream in the coming weeks. There’s also Broom Heights in Midleton – a development of 260 houses that the company Marlet are building. In Mallow, the 180-home Rahan View is also due for construction soon with O’Flynn Construction. 

“Arderrow in Ballyvolane is also going really well,” says Paul. “We’re just about to release another 20 units there and we’ve had over 140 sales there to date.” 

Midleton is becoming one of the fastest-growing towns in Munster in terms of the number of new homes coming up over the next year or so. In addition to Broom Heights, there’s also Lake View, which is still growing with over 140 sales to date and about 60 more to come onstream. 

“In Midleton, there are also 2 or 3 new developments due to come up in Water Rock alone,” says Paul of the new ‘town within a town’ that has been developed in Midleton around the revived railway infrastructure of East Cork. 

There have been permissions granted recently too for a number of developments which should all be built over the coming years. These include a 500-home scheme at Dunkettle in Cork city by O’Flynn Construction and a 600-home development outside Ballincollig by Murnane & O’Shea.

There’s also an 18-home development due to be constructed on the Rochestown Road – The Orchard. This will be for the high-end market but all such developments have a knock-on effect that benefits the FTB market as well as the property market in general. 

Areas such as Carrigaline and Ballincollig have been starved of new developments in recent years, but there are plans for more large-scale schemes in the coming years. The Bridgewater Group has plans to build 274 units in Carrigaline, for example. This is currently being stalled in the planning process, but is expected to come good in the next few years, along with others.