Over 850 homes empty in Westmeath and Roscommon

"Catastrophic failures" in Ireland's banking, financial and planning systems has led to a haunted landscape of an oversupplied housing market throughout Westmeath and Roscommon. A total of 53 ghost estates now exist within the two counties, with a total of 858 houses lying empty and 105 still under construction; a legacy to the building boom that defined the Celtic Tiger era. The figures are contained in the latest report from the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA) called "A Haunted Landscape: Housing and Ghost Estates in Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland" released last week. The report found that local authorities that had the most vacant stock in 2006, built the most new housing, currently have the highest surpluses of stock, and have the most land zoned for future use. This had led to the new phenomenon of 'ghost estates'. The authors define a ghost estate as a development of ten or more houses where 50% of the properties are either vacant or under-construction. Roscommon has the second highest amount of ghost estates per head of population, coming after Leitrim, while Westmeath has the 11th highest amount. Out of Roscommon's 35 ghost estates, consisting of 904 units, a total of 549 are vacant while 71 are under construction. In Westmeath, there are 309 vacant units and 34 under construction out of a total of 447 within 18 ghost estates. "Ireland is awash with buildings that few people either can afford or want to purchase," wrote the authors, adding hotels, offices, shopping centres, retail parks and industrial units to the 'ghost' list. NIRSA predicts that it will take three years for this oversupply of houses in Westmeath to even out - but only if households continue to grow at a rate similar to the growth between 1996-2006 (which they aren't). Meanwhile in Co. Roscommon, it will take potentially 8.9 years to occupy the oversupply of houses in the county, again, only if households continue to grow at those same levels. So it's likely that these houses will take longer to fill up. The authors of the report blame the huge surge in housing throughout the country on bad planning, over-zoning and rampant development through tax breaks. The report said that the planning system was "undermined by elements of clientelism, cronyism and low-level corruption at play in the system at all levels" and described the growth in the residential zoning of land by local authorities as "excessive". "What the data reveal (sic) is that whilst some counties have a relatively small bank of zoned land, others have zoned vast hectares of land far in excess of any kind of reasonable expectation with regards to short to medium term demand," said the authors. The report notes that while demand for housing might return relatively quickly in urban areas when the economy picks up, and such estates might be used to deal with the social housing waiting list, it is likely that demand will be weak in rural counties given that recessions generally lead to rural out-migration and a slower recovery. "It therefore seems likely that many properties in rural areas will remain empty for quite some time - up to ten years," said the authors. Meanwhile, the report also found that there was a 35.8% and a 30.1% drop in asking prices in Westmeath and Roscommon respectively in December 2009 from the market peak.