Above average vacancy and slow property sales in Clare last year

CLARE was one of only three counties in the Republic of Ireland that didn’t see an increase in the number of residential property transactions in the year up to November 2022, according to the latest Geodirectory Residential Report.

GeoDirectory found that there was a vacancy rate of 5.8% for the county in December, which is greater than the 4% average for the country. Of the remainder, 87.7% was occupied, while 6.5% consisted of holiday homes.

The report also showed that 3.8% of Clare’s housing stock at the end of last year consisted of apartments.

There were 424 new addresses added to GeoDirectory’s database in Clare, out of a total of 28,510 in the Republic. Clare had 1.8% of all construction activity in the year.

At the end of last year work was underway on 394 buildings in Co Clare, while there had been 360 residential commencements in the county up until November.

Its research showed that Clare had 1,070 residential property transactions in the 12 months up to last November, and just under 10% of those related to new homes. The average property price for the county was €244,953.

The Executive Summary in the GeoDirectory report stated, “As of December 2022, the total stock of residential properties in Ireland was 2,100,905 dwellings.

“Detached dwellings (30.7%) continued to make up the largest share of this total, followed by terraced (28.2%) and semi-detached dwellings (24.7%).

“The number of apartments, which are defined as a dwelling which exists in a building of five or more dwellings, amounted to 210,150 units (10% of the total residential stock). This total equated to an increase of 13,007 units (or 6.2%) relative to December 2021.”

Regarding average house prices across the Republic, it said, “National average house price during the 12 months to November 2022 was €354,060, up 9.0% versus the previous 12-month period to November 2021.

“Average house prices increased across all 26 counties. The largest increases in average house prices were seen in Donegal and Waterford both at 18.9% followed by Offaly (+18.8%).

“Dublin recorded the highest average house price (€528,211), followed by Wicklow (€467,154) and Kildare (€373,666). All other counties recorded house prices below the national average. Roscommon (€176,291), Leitrim (€169,425) and Longford (€165,854) posted the lowest average house prices across the 12 months to November 2022.”