NEW: Belfast sales by property type

The NIPSA HPI has included a breakdown, for the first time ever, of sales by property type in each council area of Northern Ireland.

To delight of those (like me) who love facts and figures, they have not only compiled this data for the most recent quarter, oh no.

They provided the sales figures for property sales by type for the last twelve years. That's right; we have the data for how many of each type of property sold in each quarter right back to the first quarter of 2005.

It's fascinating reading - and to make it a little easier to spot the trends, we put it all into a couple of pretty graphics. Do feel free to share this on social media - but do credit us and link back to this article please.

Given the property stock in Belfast, it's not really surprising that terraced houses dominate sales - that's the type of property we have the most of in this city, due in no small part to its manufacturing and shipbuilding history. 

Terraced housing was traditionally the most effective way to house a lot of people in limited space. And these lhouses were built to last. Add to that our stock of former-social-housing - again, built to last and family-friendly.

 In general the figures do reflect the housing stock in Belfast. With Belfast booming and the city centre set to expand (and ergo the population) There's probably only one way to go - and that's up. 

And we mean that quite literally - up towards the sky, to make the most of the limited space we have. That's why we are seeing more and more apartments going up and why we think the demand for this type of accommodation will continue to grow.

Any developers and investors wondering what to do with that prime piece of land you just purchased? Apartments, apartments, apartments. We can't emphasise this enough.