New home completions up almost 33% in first quarter - CSO

There has been a 33% surge in the number of homes built in the first three months of this year compared with the same time in 2025, according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office.

A total of 7,856 houses and apartments were built in January, February and March of this year, which is the highest level of completions since the CSO began collecting data on dwelling completions in 2011.

The number of apartments built in the first three months of this year were up 33.3%, houses built in estates rose 34.5% and the number of one-off homes rose 27.8%.

While the figures show an encouraging increase in home building, experts have forecasted that completions in 2026 will still fall far short of the 50,000 or more homes needed to annually to have a significant impact on the housing crisis.

Today's CSO figures show there was an increase in completions in all regions of Ireland with the border region showing a 58% rise.

Nearly 90% of housing schemes completed were in cities, satellite urban towns or rural areas with a high urban influence.

Minister for Housing James Browne has said there is a real sense of momentum in house building now however the government "won't be taking the foot of the pedal".

Welcoming today's CSO statistics, Minister Browne acknowledged there is more to do but these figures show a positive start to the year.

Commenting on today's figures, Davy's chief economist Kevin Timoney said the 7,856 homes built between January and March fell short of their forecast of 9,660 completions.

"We think adverse weather conditions, especially in February which saw an unusually high level of rainfall, explains the lower-than-expected figures, with one of the wettest Februarys on record," the economist said.

Kevin Timoney said that after a weak first quarter result last year, the level of apartments built increased 33% to 2,355, while houses grew by a similarly strong rate to 5,501.

Davy had forecast 6,700 houses and just under 3,000 apartment completions.

"However, we continue to see a strong pipeline of new housing delivery this year and next, still supported by a high level of commencements in 2024 and subsequent policy efforts to address infrastructure shortfalls along with bottlenecks in housing delivery, including those related to delivery costs," he added.