Is co-housing the answer for our ageing population?
PROPERTY
Property Insights by Johnny Gannon, Fair Deal Property
Irelands’ housing shortage contains a surprising paradox. We have among the highest rates of under-occupied housing anywhere in the EU. Roughly seven in ten of us live in homes larger than our household requires, against a European average closer to one in three. Put simply, millions of bedrooms sit empty every night in a country experiencing a critical housing shortage.
This is not a story about blame. It is a story about mismatch. Across north Galway, many older homeowners, often living alone after a bereavement, occupy large rural houses that are costly to heat, difficult to maintain, and increasingly isolating, particularly where driving becomes harder. Most would never consider a nursing home and should not have to. The real problem is that between staying put and institutional care, very few options exist.
This is where co-housing deserves serious consideration. The model, pioneered in Denmark 50 years ago and now growing rapidly in Britain, involves private homes clustered around shared facilities such as gardens, guest rooms and communal dining spaces.
Residents own or rent their own front door, with full independence, but live within a designed community where neighbours notice if someone has not been seen, where maintenance is shared, and where isolation is structurally addressed rather than left to chance. Denmark now has around 400 such communities, nearly half of them designed for older people. Britain has more than 120 completed or in development, with waiting lists in the thousands.
Ireland has almost none, despite arguably needing the model more than either country. Our population is ageing quickly, our older homeowners hold substantial equity in unsuitable houses, and our rightsizing market barely functions, not because people refuse to move but because there is little attractive to move to.
The property market implications are significant. Every older household that moves to something suitable releases a family home into a supply-starved market. A single well-designed co-housing scheme of 20 homes in a town like Tuam could free up 20 larger houses for growing families, while giving its residents warmth, security, community and lower running costs. Towns with zoned land, existing services and strong community ties are precisely where the model works best.
Delivering it would require planning support, financing products and willing landowners. None of these obstacles are insurmountable. What has been missing is a working Irish example, and the first community to build one will find no shortage of interest.
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