# The cost of building a house in Ireland



## Brendan Burgess (31 Mar 2016)

I thought that I had posted about this article from Godfrey Grant before, but can't find it.


* [broken link removed] *

It's from April 2015, so it's the most recent estimate I have seen. (I also attach a report from November 2014 from the Irish Home Builders Association)

These are the costs before any profit for the builder.


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## moneybox (31 Mar 2016)

What are Part V contributions?  and why is the cost of finance so high, is that just basically raising the money from the bank to build the house?

Looking at those figures one can see why its cheaper to buy rather than to build.  Of course for a large developer I am sure the above figures would be a lot lower, economy of scales and all that.


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## Brendan Burgess (31 Mar 2016)

moneybox said:


> Of course for a large developer I am sure the above figures would be a lot lower, economy of scales and all that.



These are the costs per house for a medium sized development.  Not the cost of a one off house.



moneybox said:


> why is the cost of finance so high, is that just basically raising the money from the bank to build the house?



They have to buy the land and get planning permission. So there would be a fairly long time between the payment for the land and the start of building.

Then they have to finance the building itself.  

It seems reasonable.

Brendan


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## moneybox (1 Apr 2016)

[broken link removed]

Interesting analysis by Rory McEntee on the video at the end.


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## Brendan Burgess (1 Apr 2016)

Hi moneybox

I hadn't listened to that interview. Very interesting. 

The vat rate on building new houses in the UK is zero!  

Compared to 12% of the selling price of a house here. 

Brendan


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## Purple (1 Apr 2016)

I don’t understand why the cost of construction goes up all the time. In every other area of manufacturing costs are going down. In my own company we are manufacturing products at prices 25% lower than we did 15 years ago. There is no reason other than incompetence for the costs to remain so high in the construction sector.

Through pre-fabrication and the use of modular units much of the high cost labour can and should be removed from the construction. There is no reason why bricklayers, the most expensive of all building trades, should ever be required on a site where houses have been designed properly.


If this means that house pre-fabrication takes place in a different country then so be it; the Irish construction industry, and people employed in the Irish construction industry, deserve very little sympathy when they moan about the cost of construction as they are largely the authors of the problem due to their own greed and incompetence.


When they have taken a minimum of 25% out of the cost of construction through efficiency and wage reductions then come back and look for sympathy and/or help but at the moment they are not fit for purpose and that is a major contributing factor in the homelessness crisis.


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## Firefly (1 Apr 2016)

I would question the 100e per square foot, especially for the large, uniform housing estates that will probably be built. Ditto for architect fees - draw once & build x 100.


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## Purple (1 Apr 2016)

Firefly said:


> I would question the 100e per square foot, especially for the large, uniform housing estates that will probably be built. Ditto for architect fees - draw once & build x 100.


We should be thinking in terms of assembling houses, not building them. They should be manufactured in factories and assembled on site. The quality of the finished product would be far superior to the second rate rubbish churned out by our second rate tradespeople, engineers and architects.


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## Bronte (1 Apr 2016)

Purple said:


> We should be thinking in terms of assembling houses, not building them. They should be manufactured in factories and assembled on site. The quality of the finished product would be far superior to the second rate rubbish churned out by our second rate tradespeople, engineers and architects.



 Time and again I've been shocked with the quality of builds in the last decade or so.  And the lack of parking is obscene in new housing estates.


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## Steven Barrett (1 Apr 2016)

Bronte said:


> Time and again I've been shocked with the quality of builds in the last decade or so.  And the lack of parking is obscene in new housing estates.



Lack of parking space, lack of gardens, lack of green areas for kids to kick a ball in. Houses squeezed up, so you have the sitting room upstairs from the kitchen.


Steven
www.bluewaterfp.ie


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## Steven Barrett (1 Apr 2016)

Brendan Burgess said:


> These are the costs per house for a medium sized development.  Not the cost of a one off house.



What do they sell those medium sized houses at? €600,000? 

Was surprised it costs €15,000 on average for roads and infrastructure. I would have thought economies of scale would have driven those costs down. 

Steven
www.bluewaterfp.ie


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## newtothis (2 Apr 2016)

SBarrett said:


> Lack of parking space, lack of gardens, lack of green areas for kids to kick a ball in.



....and  yet the claim from the building industry is that planning is too difficult/costly  

If they had their way, there would be no constraints at all on anything they thought they could get away with.


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