The price of apartment construction is skyrocketing in these European cities

The Swiss city of Zurich and the Irish capital, Dublin, top the price list in a recent report on construction costs across Europe. The data published this week by the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland and Trinity College Dublin analyse the price of building the same unit habitable in ten cities.

Thus, a reference has been taken block of 39 apartmentsseven or more floors, with two-bedroom apartments, for the most part. According to the report, the cost of building this type of apartment in Zurich It is around 2,866 euros per square meterthe highest figure on record.

In the classification, they are followed by DublinManchester, Stockholm and GlasgowAt the more affordable end are Birmingham, Amsterdam, Brussels and Belfast.

Construction costs are lower in Estonia

The cheapest cityof those that participated in the study, is Tallinn. In the Estonian capital, building an apartment costs around 1,367 euros per square metre, well below the average of the 10 most expensive cities (around 2,057 euros per square metre).

Researchers have focused on the so-called ‘hard’ costsas is the case with 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 blockcompared to what it would be if it were 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 is a 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 generate higher costs“and we believe that if planning policy were to adopt alternative approaches and have more flexibility, costs in this area could be reduced,” he said.

Authorities in Dublin, a city that is one of the main focuses of the report, have been struggling for years to build enough housing to keep its population housed. The cost of building a block of flats in the Irish capital amounts to 2,363 euros per square meter.

According to figures from Ireland’s Central Statistics Office, 13,866 adults and children were in accommodation for homeless peoplein the Irish nation, which represents an annual increase of 16%.

“Dublin is a bit cheaper than the typical one city ​​for structural works“usually made of concrete,” said Ronan Lyons, associate professor of economics at Trinity College in the Irish capital.

“However the High overall cost of Dublin “This is due, in particular, to two headings,” he added. Namely, “services and equipment, which includes heating and electric lifts, and non-structural works, which covers matters such as floors, windows and carpentry,” he concluded.

However, a broader analysis of all the cities studied suggests that the price of resources varies much less than labor costsCiting figures from Eurostat, the new publication notes that in Estonia the average hourly cost of labour in construction is 16.50 euros.

“The most expensive group is that of Central European citiesparticularly the Germanic ones, which have the highest hourly labour costs of all the cities studied,” the report stresses. “This group includes Zurich, Vienna and Berlin, as well as Geneva.”

The report’s authors stress that further research is needed to compare other factors, such as the price of land and detailed regulatory costsIt should also be noted that the figures contained in the report are from the first quarter of 2020.

They were therefore registered before construction costs skyrocketed, due to the pandemic and the energy price crisis in Europe.