Ronan Lyons

The average listed price of a property in the first three months of the year fell for the first time in a decade. And given the twin threats of rising inflation and rising interest rates, the downward pressure on demand is unlikely to end any time soon.

We know we need homes. The question now is whether the State will take on the roles needed to make those homes a reality.

The country’s housing stock should adapt to reflect a changing society – rather than force society to adapt to its constraints. Unfortunately, this has not happened over the past decade. Our model is antiquated and is making a bad situation even worse.

Between 2015 and 2022, market rents increased by almost 75%, while in the same period, rents for sitting tenants increased by just 19%. And based on my analysis, Ireland is missing between 200,000 and 250,000 rental homes.

Unfortunately, we are at the peak of the construction cycle. While almost 30,000 homes were completed last year, just 22,300 were started – down from 25,400 in 2021. Meanwhile, the number of properties granted planning permission has fallen.

The property market started to cool noticeably at the end of 2022, while demand appears to have weakened further this year. And, based on the data, we are unlikely to see any upward pressure on prices over the coming months.

The volume of sale listings has recovered by about 40% over the course of 2021 and 2022, leaving it nationally only about 5% shy of its pre-Covid total. But as various trends over recent years suggest, the picture looks very different around the country.

Rail brings far less congestion than road transport, and we're right to push for it. But as 19th century Ireland shows, rail is no guarantee of growth.

The country is somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 rental homes short of where it needs to be. A prudent Housing Minister would be thinking about the upper end of that range, as each year sees additional unmet need.

Housing policy is fixated on a 1950s vision of Irish life that misses the growth of cities, small households, and assisted living.