Report shows upturn in construction activity during 2018

The number accounted for 9.9% of the total stock of new addresses registered across the country over the period - almost double the amount for the same period to October 2017.

The figures, contained within the latests GeoView Residential Buildings Report published by GeoDirectory, also showed there were 1,020 dwellings currently under construction across Cork during December - up by 215 on the December 2017 total.

The full report is available to view at www.geodirectory.ie, which was established jointly by An Post and Ordnance Survey Ireland to create and manage the country's only database of commercial and residential buildings.

It showed that a total of 5,403 property transactions took place over the 12-month period, 17.4% of which were new dwellings, with the average property price in Cork standing at €248,362.

This represented an increase of €27,465 on the corresponding figure for the previous year. This was below the national average asking price of €284,546, although it must be pointed out that if you removed the figures for Dublin this figure drops dramatically to €207,135.

The report showed that the average vacancy rate for Cork stood at 4.2% (0.2% lower than 2017) and 0.6% lower than the national figure of 4.8%, which remained unchanged from last year.

Contained within the report were figures for specific Eircode areas across Cork, details of which can be seen in the attached panel.

Nationally, the report showed the total stock of residential dwellings stood at 1,993,672, with 53,521 transactions taking place over the 12-month period.

Overall, the report concluded the GeoDirectory database showed continued growth in new construction activity, with 10,836 buildings being classified as 'under construction' last month, compared to the figure for December 2017 of 7,457 - a 45% increase.

It found that 21,207 new dwellings were added to the database in the 12-months to December 2018, representing 1.1% of total stock.

The vast majority of these (53.8%) were added in the greater Dublin area, with the commuter belt counties in Leinster accounting for almost two-thirds of the overall total.

In terms of individual counties, Cork came in second behind Dublin accounting for almost 10% of new addresses registered.

Commenting on the report GeoDirectory CEO Dara Keogh said construction activity had increased by 121% over the past two-years, something this was beginning to be reflected in residential property transaction data.

"20.7% of all residential property transactions in the twelve months to October 2018 were for new dwellings, an increase of 2.7 percentage points on the previous year," he said.

Annette Hughes, of EY-DKM Economic Advisory Services said the latest findings confirmed the construction industry was "responding positively" to the challenge of house demand.

However, she said there was "still a way to go to satisfy demand", pointing out there was an obvious geographical divide when it came to construction activity, which is "concentrated heavily around Dublin and the surrounding commuter counties".