BREAKING: More than one in five are rejecting housing offers from Kildare County Council
Concern
One in five people seeking to be housed by Kildare County Council turned down an offer of accommodation by the council last year.
This figure for this year is currently running at 17%.
One of the reasons for the rejection rate is that most properties being offered are apartments.
Kildare County Council official Annette Aspell told a council meeting that education needs to be provided around the fact that most housing comes in the form of apartments and “the day of the three bed semi detached house is gone.”
Those seeking accommodation can nominate three locations where they want to live.
Ms Aspell said the number of refusals is concerning "and increasing year on year."
It takes, on average, 51 weeks to re-let a house which has become vacant and while the costs of renovating a property before it is rented again varies, the average cost is €42,500.
The money spent maintaining a house in a given year is €1,099 - though this is also an average figure.
At the moment, just 158 of a total housing stock 6,468 was vacant and this represents a vacancy rate of 2.5%
Ms Aspell said this is considered low when compared to a 21.5% vacancy rate in the private rental market in the county.
Cllr Aidan Farrelly said that a time lapse of 51 weeks is “very slow” when compared with some other counties and a cost of €42,000 is also higher than in other counties.