House rebuilding costs have risen marginally again over the past 12 months, according to a new survey published by Ireland’s largest construction and property industry body, the Society of Chartered Surveyors (SCS).

The SCS, which has launched its 2007 guide to house rebuilding costs to assist homeowners with insuring their property, warns that although increases in reinstatement costs are minimal, homes must be properly valued for building insurance.

The new SCS Guide shows that rebuilding costs have risen similarly across the board in four of the major urban areas surveyed – Dublin, Cork, Galway and Waterford, with the fifth, Limerick, showing lower increases. It also shows that increases over the past year are more or less on a par with those in the previous 12 months period and are not running much higher than the current level of inflation.

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The highest increase was found to be for detached bungalows in all areas. In Dublin costs are up by as much as 4.83% followed by Waterford which saw a rise of 4.58%. Cork was next with a highest average increase of 4.52%, then Galway with 4.31%. Costs rose least in Limerick where the highest was up by 4.29%.

In the previous 2005-2006 period, the highest average cost increase across all house types was in Galway at 4.77% and the lowest again in Limerick at 4.22%.

"We are pleased to find that costs in rebuilding homes have not risen too much again for the third year running and are more or less in line with general inflation," said Richard Mossop, chairman of the Society of Chartered Surveyors' Quantity Surveying Division, which carried out the survey.

(CL)