Key figures from the latest Housing Bulletin

The Department for Communities has released the Northern Ireland Housing Bulletin for April-June 2017, detailing recent progressions in house prices, homelessness and housing supply.

House prices

The standardised average house price in Northern Ireland in this quarter was £128,650. This is an increase of 3.1% since the previous quarter, and 4.4% in the previous year. Apartment properties have shown the biggest increases in price in recent years.

Prices remain considerably below their pre-crash peak of £250,000, and it is likely that there is still a substantial tranche of Northern Irish households in negative equity.

Homelessness

4,650 households presented as homeless during this quarter, with single males and families being the highest proportions of those presenters. 3,016 of these households were accepted as “Full Duty applicant” homeless, with the most common reasons for homelessness continuing to be unreasonable accommodation, family dispute/sharing breakdown, and loss of rented accommodation.

The allocation of social housing is currently under review, with the Department for Communities recently releasing 20 proposals for change to the allocations system. These proposals are open for consultation until 21st December.

Housing supply

There were 2,444 new dwelling starts in this quarter – an increase of 19% in the same quarter last year.

Within this figure, there were 308 social housing starts – an increase of 29% on the same quarter in 2016. However, concerns relating to ONS reclassification of housing associations remain. The classification of NI housing associations as public bodies could potentially constrain their capacity to access finance and develop new dwellings; whilst there has been sufficient progress across Great Britain to prevent this reclassification of housing associations there, this has not happened in Northern Ireland.