All-Island Research Observatory (AIRO) recently launched Dublin’s most comprehensive housing mapping tool. The Dublin Housing Observatory (DHO) Mapping Viewer offers new perceptions into the breakdown of housing in the capital and will inform new Dublin City Council housing policy. The DHO will go a long way to providing detailed information on Dublin’s housing market with a primary emphasis on the rental market, property sales and valuations, planning and zoning. There is also Census based socio-economic variables at play too making this new initiative quite interesting to say the least.
It is a concept that will bring information right to prospective buyer’s doors, giving them a huge amount of insight into the ever-changing property market. With available information and statistics, its data will provide buyers with sale prices, rents, locations and social housing figures as well as privately rented housing records. Furthermore, the mapping tool can survey where the most overcrowding is and therefore, offer solutions or options to prospective buyers. While buyers are happy about this development in a problematic property market, professionals such as policy makers, elected representatives and housing bodies will benefit from this innovative tool too. It is a joined collaboration between Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSI), the All-Ireland Research Observatory (AIRO) at Maynooth University and Dublin City Council that has brought this to life. It began from the insights and data found from the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB), the property price register (PPR), local authorities, the Revenue Commissioners and the Central Statistics Office.
While the DHO Mapping Viewer is in its infancy some interesting insights have already been shared including:
- 30% of housing in Dublin City is in private rental accommodation.
- The average rent in Dublin city is €1,480 per month.
- The most expensive areas to rent in the metropolitan area are in Stillorgan.
- Housing in Dublin’s suburbs are predominantly occupied by its property owner (68%).
- House prices in Dublin vary, with the cheapest sales prices reported in northern parts of the city.
In addition to these insights, according to Ordnance Survey Ireland, The Dublin Housing Observatory has four main objectives including:
- Enabling support to Dublin City Council’s delivery of high quality reasonably priced homes as well as sustainable communities.
- Offering a knowledgeable exchange hub for policy design, analysis and application on housing and expansion.
- Providing enquiries and analysis to support evidence-informed decision making on the housing policy.
- Being an objective source of information on the restraints of Dublin’s housing market.
This initiative will make information more readily available ensuring that prospective home owners are more aware of the property market. The housing supply is in difficulty but these new objectives within the Mapping Tool will supply facts and reliability to buyers. Organising this material and ensuring it is made available to the public will encourage better relations between estate agents and buyers, ensure transparency and prove current information is unrivalled when dealing with the property market. Modern life is allowing buyers to become educated about the property market which will prove itself as a vitally important resource in the future.
You can access the DHO Mapping Viewer here: https://airomaps.geohive.ie/DHO/