Northern Ireland Housing Bulletin January - March 2024
jk
2024-05-23
January - March 2024
A National
Statistics publication
Published by:
Analytics Division, Department for Communities
Frequency: Quarterly
Publication Date: 23 May 2024
Key Points
During the quarter ending 31st March 2024:
There were 1,106 Social Housing Development Programme (SHDP) new social housing dwelling starts and 603 SHDP new social housing dwelling completions.
The total number of applicants on the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) waiting list (with no existing NIHE/housing association tenancy) at 31 March 2024 was 47,312. Of these applicants, 35,464 households were in ‘housing stress’.
In total, 4,533 households presented as homeless to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE). The household types with the highest proportion of homeless presenters were single males (35.1%) and families (28.7%).
The number of households accepted as full duty applicants was 2,942. The most common reason for presenting as homeless reported by full duty applicants was accommodation not reasonable (961).
During the quarter ending December 2023, 302 new National Housing Building Council (NHBC) registered dwellings were sold.
The average price of NHBC-registered new dwellings for the quarter ending December 2023 was £253,600.
In January - March 2024, the Affordable Warmth Scheme made improvements to 586 homes, while provisional annual expenditure for the year 2023-24 was just over £14 million.
Introduction
The Northern Ireland Housing Bulletin is produced each quarter by the Analytics Division (AD) of the Department for Communities. The Bulletin contains information on Social Housing Development (SHDP) housing starts and completions, social housing demand, homelessness, NHBC registered new dwelling sales and prices, and the Affordable Warmth Scheme.
AD receives data for the Housing Bulletin from a number of data providers. AD carries out a number of validation checks to quality assure all data received, however, responsibility for accuracy of the data supplied lies primarily with the source.
The United Kingdom Statistics Authority has accredited these statistics as National Statistics.
National Statistics are accredited official statistics. Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. Please see: Accredited official statistics - Office for Statistics Regulation (statisticsauthority.gov.uk). These official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in January 2019. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled ‘accredited official statistics’.
Lead Statistician: Connie Callaghan
Housing Team: Lesley Curry, Katie McFadden
Section One: Supply
Supporting information can be found in the accompanying tables and appendix.
This publication reports on Social Housing Development Programme (SHDP) Starts and Completions.
The number of Building Control dwellings starts and completions, by private owners and housing associations, can be viewed on the Department of Finance’s website.
Building Control Starts and Completions and Social Housing Development Programme (SHDP) Starts and Completions figures often differ from each other, but this is not due to error. The same social housing units are recorded by both data providers, the difference lies in the recording criteria. See appendix for further information.
Section Three: Owner Occupied Housing Demand
Supporting information can be found in the accompanying tables and appendix
Information on all all verified residential property sales and average property prices, as recorded by His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC), can be found in The Northern Ireland House Price Index , produced by Land & Property Services (LPS). The LPS report is updated quarterly and contains information on the average property price and number of sales as well as index value. It also provides a measure of change of a standardised residential property sold in Northern Ireland.
New Dwelling Sales and Prices
The new dwelling sales and prices information in this section is presented by the 11 Local Government Districts (LGDs). Whilst provisional figures are provided for the latest quarter, the text will report on revised figures for October - December 2023.
During the quarter ending December 2023, 302 (revised figure) new National Housing Building Council (NHBC) registered dwellings were sold, an increase of 9.0% from the previous quarter (277) and a decrease of 10.7% from the same quarter in 2022 (338).
The average price stood at £253,600 for October - December 2023 (revised figure), which is an increase of 2.1% on the previous quarter (£248,300), and an increase of 5.4% on the same quarter in 2022 (£240,600).
Average Price of New Dwellings Sold - Quarter January - March 2018 to January - March 2024
The largest number of new dwelling sales during the quarter ending December 2023 was in the Antrim and Newtownabbey LGD (47), with an average price of £219,900.
New Dwelling Average Prices October - December 2023
New Dwelling Number of Sales October - December 2023
Map produced by Analytics Division (DfC) using National House Building Council Prices and Sales data and OSNI mapping. This is based upon Crown Copyright Intellectual Property and is reproduced with the permission of Land and Property Services under delegated authority from the Keeper of Records of Public Records. Copyright: Crown Copyright and database rights MOU577.1
Section 4: Affordable Warmth Scheme
The Affordable Warmth Scheme was introduced in September 2014 to replace the Warm Homes Scheme. The Scheme is designed to help those on lower incomes, and who are living in private accommodation, with the costs of energy efficiency measures. More information on this can be found in the accompanying tables and appendix.
In January - March 2024, a total of 586 homes were improved.
For the financial year 2023-24, improvements were made to 2,746 homes, with a provisional annual spend to date of just over £14 million.
Notes
1. Symbols and Conventions
The following symbols are used in the tables accompanying this publication:
..: Not available
-: Not Applicable
(P): Provisional
(R): Revised
*: Statistical disclosure applied
2. Revisions Policy
Homelessness statistics contained within the publication and supplementary tables are subject to revision in future releases. This is to account for retrospective actions on the Housing Management System (HMS). These revisions are performed in accordance with T3.9 of the UK Statistics Authority Code of Practice for Statistics. Figures from April 2023 onwards presented in this bulletin may be revised from previous releases.
3. Changes from previous releases
In May 2024, information regarding the Affordable Warmth Scheme (AWS) was added.
In February 2024, a table was added to show estimated stock of dwellings by tenure and local government district.
In February 2024, the bulletin was transformed into a html publication, from a pdf format.
In September 2022, following a publication review survey and based on user feedback received, data on Building Control Starts and Completions and the Northern Ireland House Price Index have been removed from the Bulletin. Both sets of data are produced by Land and Property Services (LPS) in the Department of Finance and hyperlinks to the original published data can be found within the bulletin.
In June 2022, Housing Waiting List information was added showing the social rented sector waiting lists and allocations.
In May 2020, data prior to 2016 has been removed from the accompanying publications tables. This historical data is available on request by contacting PSU.
In November 2019, to improve timeliness of information released, PSU published both the April - June 2019 and July - September 2019 bulletins.
In November 2019, user engagement survey was reviewed and revised to be more in line with the homeless user engagement survey and moved to Citizen Space in order to improve accessibility.
From May 2019, ‘Reasons for Homelessness’ categories have been expanded for “Accommodation not Reasonable” and this is illustrated in bulletin. Building Control starts/completions and SHDP starts/completions are now displayed on separate pages. This is based on user feedback and the potential for misinterpretation.
From February 2019 ‘Reasons for Homelessness’ categories have been expanded for “Accommodation not Reasonable” and “Intimidation” in Tables 2.1 and 2.3.
From November 2018, in Section Two, homelessness comparisons with the previous quarter are no longer reported. Instead comparisons with the same quarter of the previous year are made. This is based on user feedback and the potential for misinterpretation due to seasonal patterns and end of year adjustment.
4. User Engagement
Quarterly Housing Bulletin:
User feedback is welcome so we would like to encourage your participation in our user engagement survey, and thank you in advance: User engagement survey.
5. National Statistics
The statistics in this publication were independently reviewed against the Code of Practice for Statistics by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) in January 2019. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and are therefore labelled as accredited official statistics. Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. For further information please see the OSR Accredited official statistics web page.
As outlined above, our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).
OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.
You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards using the contact details in the Introduction Section.
Alternatively, you can contact the OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website. If you would like to write to the Authorities Enquiries team please send letters to: Authorities Enquiries, UK Statistics Authority, Fry Building, 1st Floor, 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF.
Since the latest review by OSR, the following improvements have been made in order to continue to comply with the Code of Practice for Statistics:
Release - accessibility enhanced by including hyperlinks to the data tables and appendix within the release. This allows users to access them directly.
Homelessness - value and insight added by providing additional breakdowns of homelessness within the data tables and the release.
Appendix - clarity increased by labelling each section in the appendix e.g. “SECTION 1 - SUPPLY”. This gives a clearer link to users between each chapter, the associated data tables and the appendix.
It is the Department for Communities’ responsibility to maintain compliance with the standards expected of National Statistics. If we become concerned about whether these statistics are still meeting the appropriate standards, we will discuss any concerns with OSR promptly. National Statistics accreditation can be removed at any point when the highest standards are not maintained, and reinstated when standards are restored.
Social Housing Development Programme (SHDP) Starts and Completions
There were 1,106 SHDP social housing dwelling starts in January - March 2024; all were self-contained.
The largest proportion of starts were new build (93.3%). This was followed by Off-the-Shelf (3.5%), Social Housing via Planning Gain (1.5%), Rehabilitation (1.0%), and Existing Satisfactory Purchase (0.6%). There were no Reimprovement starts.
There were a total of 603 SHDP social housing dwelling completions in January - March 2024; all were self-contained.
The largest proportion of SHDP new social housing dwelling completions in this quarter were New Build (93.3%). A further 3.8% were Off-the-Shelf, 2.5% were Rehabilitation, and 0.3% were Existing Satisfactory Purchase. There were no Reimprovement or Social Housing via Planning Gain completions.