The Irish Home Builders' Association (IHBA) is expecting 75,000 new homes to be built this year, compared to 90,000 in 2006.
IHBA Chairman, Jim Wood, said that while the number of houses built last year had reached its peak, demand for new homes remains extremely strong.
Speaking at the association's AGM he said : 'There has been 14 successive years of record housing output, culminating in nearly 90,000 new homes being built last year'.
He said this output helped meet pent up demand and current information shows that 75,000 new homes will be built this year, falling back to 70,000 over the following two years.
However, he warned that planning difficulties may lead to housing shortages in key urban areas, particularly Dublin where not enough planning permissions are being granted to meet demand.
There a number of problems in addressing the problem, including the unwillingness to adopt higher residential densities, he said.
Also speaking at the AGM, Paul McDonnell, of Bank of Ireland Corporate Banking said the market has slowed as interest rate rises have impacted affordability but the prospects for the economy generally are positive.
'There has been some recent evidence of a slow down in supply, and that coupled with latent demand and clarity around the stamp duty issue should see a pick up in the second half of the year and the desired 'soft landing' for the market', he said.
