The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
WITH the county’s population having grown by over 7% in the last six years and gone up 40% since 1991, it’s hardly surprising that the existing housing stock is under serious pressure.
Clearly there continues to be great demand for housing in Clare, with house prices here now higher than during the Celtic Tiger years, and with renters in many cases paying over €1,000 a month for a house.
Enda Galvin of Galvin Construction said that there is a high level of demand.
“We are currently building in Crusheen, we’ve commenced 29 homes there and got planning for 42 more.
“We’re also building in Tulla, we’re building 17 homes there and have planning in for a further 36. In the next month or two we’re hoping to open a site and build homes in Shannon. We’re finding it very busy and there is a big demand.”
He said that at the moment there is a shortage of sites in the town of Ennis for private development, although there is some social housing being built.
At the moment the biggest challenges in the sector is dealing with rising prices.
“For us at the moment it’s a very hard time in terms of price, materials, everything has gone up and it’s hard to keep everything affordable.
“Nobody wants to make house prices too high, but we have to do our job and because of more expensive materials, it goes onto the end user.”
Obviously confident about the market for new houses, he says there is also a lot of demand for second hand properties.
“The second hand market does seem to have a lack of houses at the moment. Just from speaking to auctioneers, they don’t seem to have as much stock as they used to have. We all know there’s a lack of houses and maybe that’s another sign of it.”
Owen Ryan
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked for a number of other regional titles in Limerick, Galway and Cork.
