Census shows 19,000 empty houses across Galway

A leading housing charity has said it is stunned by new figures which show that there are almost 19,000 houses lying empty across the county with an estimated current market value of well over €3.3 billion.

Housing charity Threshold say they are shocked that there are 15,113 empty houses in County Galway and 3,839 in the city at a time when there is such pressing needed for decent quality accommodation.

Latest census figures have shown a drop in 3.6 per cent in the number of vacant dwellings in the city area but a hike of 11.3 per cent in the number of empty houses in the rest of the county.

This means that one house in every nine in Co. Galway is lying empty, at a time when there is no money for the County Council or City Council to build new local authority homes.

House prices have continued to free-fall, with figures released by Ireland’s largest property website, daft.ie, yesterday showing a fall of 5.6 per cent in the second quarter of this year.

The average price of a new house in Galway city in the final quarter of last year was €215,000, while in the rest of the county asking prices averaged at €165,000, a reduction of €143,000 on the figure at the peak of the boom.

Taking these figures as rough guidelines, this means that there is now just under €3,320,000,000 worth of vacant houses and apartments in the entire county.

See full story - and census figures special - in this week's Connacht Tribune.