The green whistleblower : the building frenzy

Abstract

The Times' editorial of October 1 certainly deserves praise for highlighting the current building frenzy in this country, and referring to some findings of the Central Bank's Quarterly Review (2005: 1 ), which analysed housing prices. It states that more money is being invested in housing since there is a perceived lack of alternative local investment outlets (although average returns from bonds and equities quoted in the stock market over the last ten years have been higher than those from property). The term 'frenzy' is certainly not an overblown one, when one considers that the amount of housing units built in 2004 is said to have been almost treble the amount of five years ago and that MEPA had already reported in a previous topic paper that the housing stock would be over double that required by 2020 (139 per cent oversupply).