The slump in home building because of Covid-19 has been much less severe than feared, particularly in rural areas where one-off house construction is the norm.
Stockbroker Goodbody previously warned that home building would collapse in the second quarter by at least 75%. Instead, completions actually fell by only 33% in the April-June period versus 2019.
Goodbody found that completion rates fell the most in Dublin, where housing completions were 48% lower than a year ago.
As a result, Goodbody has sharply raised its forecasts for housing completions this year by 2,500 to 16,500, and in 2021 by 3,500 to 19,500. However, that is still far short of the pre-Covid expectation of 25,000 homes being built this year.
Read full article: Independent.ie