Housing stock is continually under scrutiny in the press these days. Whether it is social housing or strategic housing developments, rent inflation or mortgage rates, it all points to one consistent message. There is a perennial need for more housing. Kieran McQuinn of the ESRI stated this week in his recent publication “While there are many pressing demands for additional State capital investment, without significant investment in residential construction, we risk experiencing another decade of inadequate housing supply and resulting upward pressure on residential prices and rents.”
With that in mind we took a deeper look in the BuildingInfo database to try to understand what the pool of planned activity in the housing sector is. We looked at projects that have been granted planning permission, but have not yet started works, and indeed have not yet expired. This represents the intent in the industry to supply housing as it stands which has not yet been acted on. Coupling this with population figures for each county from the most recent CSO census we have compiled the table.
