A Leitrim auctioneer says he believes a focus on vacant properties in towns and villages across the country would help provide much needed housing and rental stock.
Gordon Hughes is commenting in the aftermath of the latest Daft.ie property survey which reports on trends in asking prices for the last three months.
While the national trend is a very slight reduction in costs the Shannonside region continues to see a rise in prices.
Gordon Hughes says prices are likely to continue to go up due to very limited housing stock.
"My own belief is that they really should be looking at incentives more for town centre properties to get those back. They're properties that are generally in good conditions and can be renovated in a short period of time which would help solve a lot of our housing crisis. I'm not trying to simplify it but I think, when you have properties like that that are there ready to go and don't need a huge amount of work in larger centres like Athlone, Mullingar, and Dublin for that matter, there's a huge pot of properties there that don't need a lot of work".
