88 new housing units were commenced in the first four months of 2012 in Galway, according to new statistics released by the Construction Industry Federation (CIF ). This represents a drop of 25 units or 22 per cent on the same period during 2011, when work began on 113 new units, according to the CIF’s latest Housing Statistics Bulletin.
Of the new units commenced 86 were single units, representing 98 per cent of the total activity. 81 of the new housing units were commenced in the Galway County area, while seven commenced in Galway City.
For the twelve month period up to the end of April of this year, 274 housing units were commenced in Galway. This compares with 396 commenced in the twelve months up to April 2011, a year on year decrease of 122 units or 31 per cent. In Galway County 260 units were commenced in the twelve months to April 2012, while 14 were commenced in Galway City.
There was also a decline in the level of house completions in Galway during the first five months of 2012. Between January and May of this year 214 housing units were completed. This compares with 287 during the same period in 2011, a drop of 73 or 25 per cent.
206 of the houses completed were in Galway County, with the remaining eight in Galway City. This compares to 243 units completed in Galway County during the same period in 2011 and 44 in Galway City.
Nationally the level of new house completions is down for the first five months with 3,283 housing units completed compared to 4,442 during the January to May period for 2011 – a drop of 1,160 units or 26 per cent.
There has also been a sharp decrease in the number of houses commenced nationally with the statistics revealing a drop of 31 per cent as 1,212 new housing units were commenced between January and April compared to 1,751 for the same timeframe in 2011.
A total of 10,480 housing units were completed during 2011. The CIF has predicted that between 7,500 – 8,000 units will be completed during 2012.
