There are almost 5,000 vacant homes in Dublin, according to new figures from address database GeoDirectory. 

The Irish Times more than 12,000 homes and commercial properties are vacant across Dublin based on data obtained from An Post and Tailte Éireann’s GeoDirectory. 

Almost 5,000 of these vacant properties are houses or stand-alone apartments, and The Irish Times reported 40% have been empty for more than four years putting them at significant risk of dereliction. 

GeoDirectory CEO Dara Keogh said residential vacancy rates in Dublin are low at 1%. 

“What we’re looking at here is a relatively small figure to housing stock,” he said. “There’s no one area that has a huge volume – it's spread. 

“The level vacancy is only 1% - and while it sounds like a big figure, relative to the size of the population and the amount of buildings available, it’s actually quite small.” 

City centre

Some 3,200 of the vacant Dublin buildings are in the city centre, according to the data. 

The city street analysis shows a high concentration of empty commercial units in the Dublin 2 and Dublin 8 area, with large numbers of empty mixed buildings in Dublin 8 also. 

The largest number of empty properties in the central area are commercial, at almost 1,900 

Mr Keogh said it can take years before Dublin City Council recognises a property as vacant. 

“Because of things like probate and other legal reasons, generally speaking, a property would need to be vacant for possibly two years before they really look at it as being vacant,” he said.