News
Glenigan: Private Housing Activity
17/11/2009
The number of private housing approvals has fallen dramatically since the onset of the credit crunch. At 167 projects, the number of monthly approvals for new private housing schemes during 2008 and 2009 has been running at half the rate of the preceding four years. In addition on average 10% fewer houses and flats are covered by each approval. The drop in average project size has been driven by an absence of medium sized schemes winning approval. The number of applications for schemes of between 50 to 500 homes have fallen by 54% over the period, while the number of projects for schemes of less than 50 units dropped 45 per cent.
In contrast approvals for the largest schemes held up reasonably well, at least initially during 2008, and the average number of units covered by such applications actually rose slightly. The relative strength of such projects appears to reflect their long term strategic nature. Typically such projects will be built out over a number of years and accordingly the decision to press on with a planning application is less influenced by current market conditions. Unfortunately, the current year provides a less encouraging tale with only two schemes in excess of 500 homes securing detailed planning approval since January.
The flow of planning applications for new private housing developments remains extremely weak. The number of applications during the first nine months of this year was 54 per cent down on a year earlier. However there are some tentative signs that the flow of new applications may be starting to stabilise, at least in those parts of the country that were among those hardest hit initially by the downturn in the housing market.
This story is taken from the Glenigan Subscriber newsletter, which has been made available to CIMCIG members - click here for more stories: http://www.glenigan.com/newsletter09/nov17th_custnews.asp
