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NEW FIGURES HAVE shown that rents in Dublin went up by 9.6% last year.
This is according to new figures from the fourth quarter of 2014 from the Private Residential Tenancies Board (PRTB).
Across the country, rents went up by 5.8% overall – with a rise of 4.8% for houses and 6.4% for apartments when compared with the final quarter of 2013.
Price growth
The average price of renting a house in Dublin is now at €1,301, up from €1,216 a year before – an increase of 7%. The cost of renting an apartment went up at a steeper rate, from 10.9% from €1,051 to €1,166, a rise of €115.
Around the country, rent growth was much less marked, with an overall increase of 3.9%, an average figure of just €24.
Specifically house rents went up by 4.4%, an increase of €28 from €639 to €667, and apartments went up by 2.9%, by €17 from €595 to €612.
Between the third and fourth quarters of 2014, changes in rents around the country were not that dramatic. While rents went up by 2.1% in Dublin, outside of the capital they actually fell by 0.3%.
Trends
In recent years, it has been found that there is a discrepancy between the third and fourth quarters of the year due to high activity levels in the third quarter with students seeking accommodation.
The PTRB’s rent index shows that rents hit their peak nationally in the fourth quarter of 2007, before falling by 26% to their lowest point in the first quarter of 2012.
The PTRB claim that their report is the most accurate of its kind in the market as it is based on “actual rents being paid”, as opposed to taking the figures from rents that are asked for or advertised for.
Speaking about the results, the director of the PRTB, Anne Marie Caulfield, warned that tenants should become more aware of their rights, saying:
Many tenants do not realise that they may be entitled to continue to rent the property they are currently living in for up to four years, even if they signed a shorter lease; they don’t always know what the correct notice periods are for the termination of their tenancy; or that rent increases can only happen once during a 12-month period.
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Just when you think your getting out of the financial hole your in,rent increases and it’s back down to the black hole of financial stress and sleepless nights
Try having a mortgage on a house in negative equity……
Did you buy your house as an investment or as a home? The price of your home is irrelevant, as you’re not planning on selling it.
If you bought it as a home, then you can be thankful for the record low interest rates. Many people’s tracker mortgage payments are now the same or less than rent for a comparable property.
If you bought as an investment – tough.
I’m a landlord and don’t have any mortgage.
So if you’re a landlord you bought it as an investment, as the previous commenter said: tough.
That’s the risk we take.
I’m in easy street, but like it or not their are two sides to the story.
The soaring rents are a symptom of the neo liberal government policy where housing is treated as a profit center for the rentier elite and assorted vested interests in banking, law, auctioneering etc. As long as this continues, we will suffer the consequences as a society as demonstrated in the property bubble, inevitable crash, family home evictions, and the current soaring rack rents and homelessness crisis.
There would be no scarcity of accommodation in Ireland if the government would play it’s proper role in ensuring the citizens had access to decent and affordable housing both rented and bought.
This would require modifying the taxation and legal systems to encourage owner occupier home purchase and strongly discourage property speculation. In parallel the state needs to construct the necessary volumes of social housing and fundamentally reform the private rental sector with an immediate rent freeze and progressive rent reductions to affordable levels, banning economic evictions and ensuring security of tenure.
There aren’t two sides to this story though, it’s simply how a market economy works. Landlords have nobody to blame but themselves if they bought properties at a massively inflated price in a market bubble in an attempt to make a profit.
Your missing the point, I’m not talking about landlords, I’m talking about people in their 30′s who are working 9-5, who would be better off renting now.
they’d be better off owning their own home rather than paying for others.
They DO OWN their home but are in negative equity! hence should have rented.
Ronan, a home if a home is for life, negative equity gradually evaporates and is replaced with equity (whilst paying a similar monthly sum to what one would renting – except in 25 years, you won’t have a house of your own to show for it).
Do you have a crystal ball?
Its a nightmare .
This Government has directly and indirectly managed to extract more money from the people than any Govt in the history of the State.
Enda Kenny will be in huge demand when he retires to do talks at loan shark conventions.
Given rents are on rise, should the govt bring back rent tax credit?
That would probably just increase the price again. They need to do that but also increase demand, it might not be popular but perhaps we need tax breaks for landlords who provide quality rental accommodation
Any intervention really needs to be on the supply side, not the demand side. Rents are rising due to lack of supply to meet soaring demand. Rental sector really needs reform and proper structure, not some haphazard short term fix. If we are really going to make private rental affordable long-term, we need to incentivize private investors to take a long term view of the investment, not just see them as some short term opportunity.
Do you mean increase the rent tax credit? lt looks to be still to there to me….http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/housing/renting_a_home/tax_relief_for_tenants.html
Unless I’m misunderstanding what you mean…
Still needs to be increased dramatically to fall in line with rising rents!
The rent relief tax credit is only in place for people who started renting before a certain date. Anyone who started renting after that (myself included, on account of me being young) get nothing.
Only older people get this benefit.
It’s difficult for landlord and tenant. Most landlords have increased rents due to increases in taxation and interest rates rather than greediness. The government could introduce some rent and tax relief here to encourage renters. This would also help prevent another property bubble if renting was a more attractive solution. Also I think bedsits should be brought back. When I was a renter I hated sharing. Viable rent options for single people should be look at.
It’s no where near as difficult as it was for landlords, most people I know who rent out apartments or houses are getting their mortgages paid by their tenants and then about 50% on top of that.
Well, if they are only getting 50% more then they aren’t making much money. They are liable for the higher band of tax on any profit. Plus they can only offset a percentage of their mortgage payment.
Now deduct PRTB. Maintenence. Painting. New washing machine. Property tax. New mattress.
See my point.
nah, don’t see your point. you meant to tell me they aren’t making as much as say 3 years ago ?
course they are. everyone has outlay, but now the good times are back for landlords. rents went down from 2009-2012 but so did peoples wages which haven’t come back nor will it. You talk like all landlords have mortgages on their properties, many are now bought and paid for.
Very bizarre theres no rent controls here. Well no, not really when you see who’s who but not just in government. Worth looking into, to see who are landlords. You’d be surprised, trust me, shocked in fact, if you saw what they’re renting out. I suggest a full investigation to blow the lid off it.
The thing is though, when the mortgage is paid off tenants will by and large have paid for the asset the landlord now owns!
John, the landlord will have taken the risk with the investment, both when buying the property and holding onto and maintaining it.
Not sure if rent controls are the answer – they seem to reduce investment in building property when implemented.
We need some proper rights for tenants, longer leases with rent reviews written into the contract, with tenants rights increasing with the length of time they are in a property. It’s crazy that someone who is renting for 10 years has the same protections as someone renting 10 months.
proper rights for tenant, to just stay? rent reviews, currently once a year, over a ten year period, nothing to stop landlords increasing it by €50-100 year on year. why would a tenant want rights to stay there then for an extra €500-€1000? Its also an easy way for landlords to get tenants out – hike the rent to levels they just can’t afford when they see others are willing to pay more. Tenant has no security here.
Rent Controls are needed, simple as. Theres too much vested interest and pressure coming from the landlords side into government buildings. The banks got their way as well, throwing a fit over An Posts interest rates so they had to be cut.
watch how they’ll get their legislation passed to allow them hand over tenants details to IW, just watch how fast that will happen but wait for any security of rent control offered to tenants. Vested interests. Buddies and all that.
Investigation that might actually reveal some truths? Now there’s a novel idea! Will never happen, sadly.
And as this table shows the level of housebuilding as at a 40 year low.
http://www.bregsforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/monthly-house-completions-1975-2014-oct.pdf
Reports of “recovery” are very premature.
Arguably Ireland has too many houses. Urban sprawl due to low-rise housing developments has become a serious issue. There’s a massive shortage of apartments, not houses.
I’m no economist, but surely if rents go up, it makes property a better investment – leading eventually to more property being built?
I’m obviouly looking at things too simply, please fill in my gaps in knowledge – thanks.
That is very simplistic. That would not make rents more affordable, just drop feed supply at a high rent.
More supply means the demand is spread out meaning a drop in rental charges. What landlord would want that? Especially if they bought at top prices and are in negative equity.
A big issue here is security of tenure. This cuts both ways. If a landlord decides to terminate a tenancy at the end of the lease the terms of which is binding on both parties then how can one party be entitled to stay on for up to four years when the lease specifies one year? If a tenant gives the proper notice that they are not continuing with a lease then the landlord cannot compel the tenant to stay on! On the other hand if a landlord does not wish to extend the lease and has given the tenant proper notice the tenant can stay on for up to 42 days and seems to have a “right” to up to four years. The landlord seems to get very little protection. The PTRB seems just to be a quango set up to tell us that there is an Act of Parliament and little else. This quango is an information body and not an advisory body. If there is to be fairness then both the tenant and the landlord should be obliged to contribute to the quango. At the moment it is just money for old rope.
i would think the PRTB favour the landlord more. Theres thousands on tenants owed deposits especially foreign students > easy prey especially when they’re going home after a year or so.
A money machine that thing. Of course everyone knows the landlord can’t put up the rent more than once in a year, oh dear, how good of them. imagine having your rent go up every year, just once is enough every 3 years but there nothing to stop them putting it up €100 five times over a 5 year period.
They argue, ‘ah well you can’t put it up too high or nobody will take it” – the way its looking now, people in the city will pack it in, enough is enough and leave their job. its just not worth it. they’re been robbed! see who’ll take them then. Greed gets no pity here. They managed for the past 5 years with rent drops and never ONCE complained!
Surely this proves that allowing the “market” to dictate prices is seriously flawed. For landlords, rent can be allowed fall to a point where landlords cannot cover costs and ultimately could lose their investment. And similarly, rents are allowed rise to levels that many tenants simply cannot afford (those on lower incomes, students, those on disability payments and job seekers) who are left facing homelessness and having to rely on the state to provide shelter. There is rarely any middle ground. It’s either one way or the other. Government has to intervene, like many other European countries, to help shape a sustainable rental market, one that gives assurance to both landlords and tenants.
they won’t. they want people to commit to more debt and take mortgages, get the housing market moving. if rents are controlled, they lose it one both counts. themselves and their many landlord friends and the sale of houses for the banks. Noonan wants this, houses to go up in price, they want everything to go up and reduce the wage lol
Property tax has a lot to do with the rent rise.
those figures wouldn’t add up, nobody buys that argument. theres profit to made off those excuses, same as wage cuts. business made more profit off that one than before 2007. course they’ll add it in and more to cover themselves very well indeed. Any tenant can find out how much their rented property is on the tax band and compare with the rent hike, you’ll see they won’t add up – they’ll be paying more in rent than that tax you’re talking about.
Perhaps its administration costs? lol
Market forces. Supply and demand simples!
oh right, thats the bonus is it? we’ll add in the property tax (understandable) to rise the rent but wait… hold on, supply and demand > adds extra figures, so forces of greed more like.
You do realise that theres still quite a large number of unfit for purpose bedsits been offered up to this ‘market’ at appalling rates. I don’t think they’re investigating enough of them, or avoiding certain ones.
Where a product/service is unfit for use, its not marketable, its a corrupt con.
Tenants abuse properties……there are certain tenants I would not touch with a barge pole even if they offered me twice the rent, my general rule is working European people with no kids. Nobody is forcing people to rent……unfit bedsit dont rent.
I would love to see the journal do a piece based on the final quote box regarding rights etc…
But no figures yet again published with regards to local authority /social housing rents. Why are these figures so elusive.
We are about to commence building hundreds of thousands of full fitted out social housing but the rental prices on these are hidden and hushed away.
Lets start with a brand new 1 bedroom local authotity apartment in Dun Laoghaire’s ex golf club, that’s currently being rented for €14.00 per week.
I want to see a separate express list for people who work.
commence? where? when? nothing is about to happen, at all.
Hardly surprising as the report on TDs’ interests shows a fair number owning rental properties.
and their friends, the protected who can do what they like till their caught out and they always get caught out. only problem is, when they’ve still friends in there, they get away with it. We need new TDs, at least half of them in there need to pack it in.
have your say