A new Irish report compares the cost of building the same apartment in ten European cities.
The Swiss city of Zurich and the Irish capital, Dublin, top the price list In a recent report on construction costs in all Europe. Data released this week by the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland and Trinity College Dublin analyzes the price of building the same unit habitable in ten cities.
Thus, we have taken as reference a block of 39 apartments, with seven or more floors, with mostly two-bedroom homes. According to the report, the construction cost of this type of apartment in Zurich around 2,866 euros per square meterthe highest figure recorded.
In the classification, they are followed DublinManchester, Stockholm and Glasgow. At the more affordable end are Birmingham, Amsterdam, Brussels and Belfast.
Construction costs are lower in Estonia
The cheapest city, of those who participated in the study, is Tallinn. In the capital of Estonia build an apartment It costs about 1,367 euros per square meter, well below the average of the 10 most expensive cities (around 2,057 euros per square meter).
Researchers have focused on so-called ‘hard’ costsas is the case of materials, as well as in some so-called ‘soft’ costsas is the case with professional fees and taxes.
“This study has compared the price of a Swiss apartment blockwith which I would have if will be built in other cities. “It is clear that this design is architecturally very different from what we would offer in Ireland,” said Bryn Griffiths, who is one of the authors of the report and serves as vice-chair of the SCSI Quantity Surveyors’ Professional Group Committee.
Design plays a crucial role in increasing construction costs
“The designs we use in Ireland they generate higher costsand we believe that if planning policy adopted alternative approaches and had more flexibility, costs in this area could be reduced,” he indicated.
The authorities of Dublin, a city that is one of the main focuses of attention of the report, have been struggling for years to build enough housing to keep its population housed. The construction price of a apartment building in the Irish capital it amounts to 2,363 euros per square meter.
According to figures from the Irish Central Statistics Office, 13,866 adults and children were in March accommodation for homeless peoplein the irish nationwhich represents an annual increase of 16%.
“Dublin is a little cheaper than the typical city for structural worksusually made of concrete,” said Ronan Lyons, associate professor of economics at Trinity College in the Irish capital.
“However the high overall cost of Dublin It is due, in particular, to two headings,” he added. Namely, “services and equipment, which includes heating and electric elevators, and non-structural works, which covers issues such as floors, windows and carpentry,” he concluded.
However, a broader analysis of tall the cities studied suggests that the price of resources varies much less than labor costs. Citing figures from Eurostat, the new publication points out that in Estonia the average hourly cost of labor in construction is 16.50 euros.
“The most expensive group is Central European cities, particularly the Germanic oneswhich have the highest hourly labor costs of all the cities studied,” the report highlights. “This group includes Zurich, Vienna and Berlin, as well as Geneva.”
The authors of the report emphasize that further research is needed to compare other factors, such as the price of land and detailed regulatory costs. It should also be noted that the figures contained in the report are from the first quarter of 2020.
Therefore, they were registered before the construction costs they will shoot, due to the pandemic and the energy price crisis in Europe.
