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THE NATION’S STOCK of available rental properties has reached its lowest point since at least the start of 2006, according to the latest figures from Daft.ie.
And that severe lack of available homes for renters is continuing to drive up prices, further stretching household budgets across the country.
The latest Daft rental report, released today, showed there were only 4,340 homes listed for rent at the start of May – the smallest number since the property site started pulling together figures almost a decade ago.
That compares to about 7,200, or 66% more, available at the same time last year and a peak of almost 24,000 after the property bubble burst in mid-2009.
The rental market squeeze has pushed up prices 8.2% nationwide for the past year to an average of €960 a month in the most-recent quarter.
The biggest rises over the past 12 months have come in the commuter counties around Dublin as people get pushed out of the capital, where the average rent now stands at €1358 per month.
Prices have gone up in every county in the country compared to a year ago. This map shows the changes and the new average rents:
Click here for a larger version
Deceptive slow-down
While the pace of rent rises has started to ease from the double-digit increases of last year, the report’s author, economist Ronan Lyons, told TheJournal.ie that slow-down was “a bit deceptive” because of what was happening in and around the capital.
The average rent in Dublin went up only €8 per month over the last quarter for an annualised increase of 8.2%, compared to nearly double that figure in surrounding areas.
Click here for a larger version
“That easing off of inflation (in Dublin) drags down the national figure – elsewhere in the country though, particularly in the commuter counties, inflation in rents has actually picked up,” Lyons said.
At some point you can’t devote more and more of your income to paying for rent because you have other things you have to pay for so what we will see is people paying through (travel) time.”
He said while a decade ago people were buying properties in commuter counties with a view to moving to Dublin in the future, many were now only able to rent in the same regions.
The underlying reason for the rent rises in and around the capital was the chronic lack of new building, which Lyons said came back to the high cost of construction.
And other cities
In the other cities, rents were also rising but at more manageable rates. Cork was the next most-expensive major centre in which to rent a home with an average price of €911.
Click here for a larger version
Waterford remained the cheapest city with an average price of €634 – less than half the average rate in Dublin.
You can hear more about Lyons’ findings on and predictions for the rental market in this video:
Note: Journal Media Ltd has shareholders in common with Daft.ie publisher Distilled Media Group.
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I live in wicklow, pay 1400 pm without fail and a mortgage for a the house im in would be approximately half what im paying now but im seen as unsuitable to be able to repay the mortgage because I cant get a deposit together. Not seeing the sense! So I’ll just continue to pay for someone else to own the property!
“im seen as unsuitable to be able to repay the mortgage because I cant get a deposit together.”
During the previous “boom” it was the same problem, although the house you are renting probably cost twice it’s current market price.
However parents coughed up many of the necessary deposits then, and compliant bankers lent imprudent sums to enable buyers to buy.
The huge influx of foreign “guest” workers who have followed the many multi-national companies who continue to base themselves here (for tax haven purposes) is also exacerbating the rental inflation in and around Dublin.
Many of them are renting a house and the cost is spread between 5 or six occupants.
My Daughter is trying to get a place in Dublin for herself and her baby and leaving out the outrageous rents apartment owners are charging she comes under the new Council scheme Hap she’s been told by the letting agency’s landlords will accept nothing only cash in most cases The reason for this ? My view apartment and house owners are not registered for tax.
What else would you want them to accept?
Rob
I presume the green thumb came from yourself what a stupid comment to make
How is it a stupid comment? Or did I miss something where you could rent for something other than money?
Build upwards…. Like every other city in the world and start investing in mass transit systems.
The market has failed in the provision of the basic human necessity of housing. This is clearly 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.
You need property investors to providing housing, it is that simple. The reason we have a property shortage is specifically because of increasing rental costs.
When they increased costs and taxes on rental property they were warned it would push up rents. Increased costs are always passed on to the consumer it is just a matter of time. Basic economics of supply and demand. Social housing has in the past created ghettoes that we still have problems with we don’t need more or similar happening
Waddler, B_S! The problem is the extremely onerous regulations and attitude and delay of the planning officials. Ask any builder. It’s simply not profitable to build at present and of course mortgages are hard to come by. The planners must be the greatest g0bs41tes in Ireland. During the boom they let us down and they’re still doing it. One year it’s one set of rules and the next it’s the exact opposite. They allowed people to build on flood planes and yet don’t allow people design the inside of their houses. At one stage they only allowed one house per FIVE acres in an area just outside Cork city. There are absurd rules about whether your family have lived in the area that are almost certainly unconstitutional.
Everything single thing now is about “environmental impact studies”. The absurdity of this is that humans have sculptured the landscape for millennia.
PS They have the same problem in the UK. A lot of it is driven by the EU faceless bureaucrats.
Drive around Dublin and you’ll see that any new houses been built are labeled as “Exclusive” Small little estates with maybe ten units selling for upwards of 500k.. When the property prices go even higher then we’ll see green spaces out in West Dublin developed with 500 units selling at 500k each..
The following are some bullet points from a recent newspaper article as to why builders are not building.
… second-hand homes in large chunks of West and North County Dublin are still valued less than the cost of building a new one.
“It will probably take another year before some western and northern parts of Dublin, as well as many parts of Cork and Limerick cities, reach the threshold that makes homes viable to build,”
“People forget that many key construction costs have risen.
Of course, increased costs, including materials, have played a role
so too have upgraded building regulations that have improved the standard of new Irish housing immeasurably. But many forget that these improvements have also added to the overall cost of construction.
Another factor he talks about which has kept costs high, has been the tendency of Irish local authorities, particularly in Dublin, to stick with ‘pre-bust’ levels of levies for services. But typically we are talking about €10,000 to €15,000 per unit rising as high as €60,000 to €70,000 in one location under the jurisdiction of Dun Laoghaire Rathdown.”
“We need to open up new green-field sites
He also points to the anomaly in the nature of existing planning permissions.
Finance of course has also become a stumbling block.
And what’s the government doing about this?? Nothing.
They consider this recovery.
They don’t care about us!!!
How many sitting in the Dail are Landlords themselves? You can be guaranteed that a good majority of TD’s have second or third homes or may be investors in apartment complexes that they rent out..
@Garland
I think that is a standard lazy thought. The information is available if you want to look it up.
What is the supposed logic. The dail are colluding to cause a housing shortage to get a couple of hundred euro a month extra?
It couldn’t possibly be the fact property investment became very risky and less investors bought over the last few years? Or taxes increased so the sold rental properties. The most logical thing is people in government want rents to go up for a marginal return.
It is strange how no matter who is government the same thing will be said.
Kal Lpers,
You are looking at the registered ones how many are not registered ?
@scott
That it, not only are they involved in a conspiracy they are also committing crimes and avoiding tax. Any evidence? Just another half baked belief all politicians are corrupt. Any more generalisation. Are all tradesmen avoiding tax, consultants are all overpayed, everybody on the dole is a cheat etc…
It isn’t like I am making up some unsupported statement and claiming it is fact. If anything people were happy when the government increased cost to landlords, here is the consequence and people still blame them for trying to line their own pockets with increased rents. Do you not see how odd the thought process is?
49 of the 166 sitting td’s are landlords
A three hour daily round-trip commute, along with four toll-booth stops, can’t be too cost effective, nor conducive to family life, now can it!
NAMA holding on to residential development sites within a 30 mile radius of Dublin awaiting Celtic Tiger style price recovery certainly isn’t helping the situation. In fact, it’s plain stupid and one of the many daft policies overseen by this Government.
But economic recovery is well underway, we’re told!
Namas job is to get the best prices for what they have – if they gave them away people would be complaining about them losing the taxpayers money
“NAMA holding on to residential development sites within a 30 mile radius of Dublin awaiting Celtic Tiger style price recovery certainly isn’t helping the situation”
too true, but unless banks lose the run of themselves again, there is a limit to the value of any building site-even where a shortage of houses exists-because wages are not going to rise sufficient to get a mortgage any time soon .
The exception may be older public servants whose incremental salaries were never halted by austerity measures and now Brendan Howlin is promising them more wages increases.
My Landlord is putting us out as he is selling his property. There is nothing out there for us at the moment, anything you do find hundreds of others find too…..we have four weeks and I don’t know what we’re going to do. This whole situation is a nightmare.
Be flexible. One advantage of renting is that you have great freedom of choice. You can rent a large 2 bedroomed apartment with a pool in sunny (and very cheap) Portugal for €400 per month. :)
Carmina… I feel for you.
Email your local TDs! And don’t for get to vote!
Stay classy William!
Pity I don’t live in Portugal then, you tosser.
Carmina, if you don’t live in Portugal and can’t afford Dublin then maybe you’re the tosser. Portugal might be better than your “nightmare”. Maybe you haven’t the capacity to think outside the box.
I don’t live in Dublin. Not sure what your problem is but go troll somewhere else.
Has nothing to do with being able to afford it, it’s about lack of properties. We can’t get a mortgage because my husband is self employed so we have no choice but to rent for the moment.
Keep the peasants busy and exhausted meanwhile sneak in TTIP and other barbaric anti people legislation while get nice and rich. There are simple practical solutions to our housing crises but these are being stone walled and dismissed whilst protecting the interests of the Banks and Developers.
There is no shortage of trades people looking for work,no shortage of young people looking for training, no shortage of sites waiting for development and no shortage of demand for houses.
Where’s the problem? Money……nope plenty of that can be pulled out of arse as demonstrated in Anglo or given to Consultancy firms set up for milking the Irish people using a moranic company called Irish Water.
How about setting up a 100% state owned housing development & construction company (with 100% transparency). Could this company be used to build the most innovative modern and environmentally efficient houses in the world?
Can we not use our Universities for R&D for these projects?…………………..naw the Banks and Dennis won’t allow this, because they can’t control it and it might even work.
God my mortgage is cheaper than some of those rents……
If you want to live in a city you pay city prices. I dont know why people are so adverse to a 1 hour or 1.5 hour commute. Eg. If you live in droghada and leave at 8am for dublin cc you will get there at 10 am. If you leave at 645 you will get there at 0730. Leave cavan at 0600 and you are there at 0730. What is the problem. The problem is all that the people moaning about the cost of rent are part of the problem. Supply and demand. You can rent a three bed in parts of cavan for 350pm.
You might save a couple of hundred quid a month on rent that way but a 3 hour round trip to work everyday will soon add up.
Sound logic there Brendan, save 400 per month on rent, add an extra 40-50 hours commute to your working month coming home absolutely knackered every night,
and then throw in 400 a month for petrol/ maintenance of car/Tyres and also depreciation of vehicle,
sure at least the numerous coffees gulped in petrol stations on the way to and from will no doubt be great craic
You must place an incredibly low value on your time…
Maybe some people want to live in the city they grew up in and enjoy there time with family and friends you obviously do feck all with your time from work and by the sounds of it dont enjoy much of a social life
I live in Slane, my husband commutes to Germany every Monday comes home Thursday, I still can’t find a rental property! What about people who rely on family to help with childcare, they have to stay as near as possible. You obviously haven’t though this through or you not in such a situation yourself.
Brendan I have a family and I like to spend time with them and not in a car getting to work.
Yeah save a few hundred euro in rent. Save a few hundred euro in child care. Save a few hundred euro on nights out.
Save a few hundred euro on insurance.
Save a few hundred euro on central heating.(40kg bag of coal E14.00 against E12.00 for a 20 kg bag)
Save a few hundred euro on non food shopping.
Smaller class sizes.
Larger play areas for the kids in bigger gardens.
E40.00 Gp fees and same day appointments.
Cheaper pharmacy prices.
Cleaner air.
Less crime.
How much time do people spend sitting in traffic. Constant speed on a motorway does less damage to an engine than constant stop start in a city.
There are a lot of pros and cons but if you live near a city and dont use public transport i feel there are more disadvantages to doing so.
550 -600 for a 3bed in cavan and there’s none available at that…. love to know where you picked that figure from. 350 might get u a room or an old cottage with no broadband or amenities within a 30 mile radius …. I’ve been searching since xmas so if u find me one livable at that I’d be impressed!!
You can actually get from Drogheda to Connolly station or Bus Áras in 50 minutes on public transport. It’s a very easy commute. I’d rather buy in the commuter belt and pay €850 mortgage a month than pay €1350 a month on rent and have nothing to show for it in 5 years time.
Glad I bought a house when I did. The price of my mortgage is well under the level of Dublin & commuter belt rent.
Same as
I see some are saying its stupid to have to drive and cost associated etc but at some stage it makes more financial sense to drive than to pay an extra €600 or more per month on rent – 1 person below is paying €1400 while someone else says €350 in cavan thats a hell of a lot of money to be spending on a place to live just so you are close to work
If you’re spending that to be close to work then yes, it’s a lot of money for sure!
If you’re spending that to be close to friends, family, social activities, and because it means you don’t have to run a car as well then maybe it’s better value.
Living in Cavan is a nice option (I’ve done it!) IF you’re prepared for the fact that you will NEED a car (no LUAS lines or even rail lines out there!), will realistically have to drive everywhere and the associated costs of doing so, and will spend a fortune commuting back to Dublin (if that’s where your job still is) as well as 3/4 hours in that car.
Personally I didn’t mind the commute (it is mostly – pretty empty – motorway so I found it a good way to unwind before getting home) but it’s an expensive, time-consuming option just to “own a house!”
I agree totally with what you are saying its a different lifestyle also and wont suit everyone but it is an option! Its one of these cases of not being able to have your cake and eat it – there has to be some compromise somewhere and unfortunately the compromise is to pay the extra rent for the time being anyway
So, I have to spend upwards of 50-60% of my monthly wages on rent and somehow save up with the scraps that remain in order to get 10% of the price of a house together so I can get a mortgage and end up paying less than I had been when renting, though since I’m renting that’s never gonna happen…
Well done Ireland, without a handout from mommy and daddy it’s next to impossible to get a home.
2 examples of whats within a 1 hour commute 5 mins from main n3 10 mins from m3
http://www.daft.ie/11031703 €45000 needs work
http://www.daft.ie/1993166 €169000 country living large gardens mature site bungalow – own space not overlooked
2 completely different houses both within easy 1 hour access of dublin city via m3 – the one at 45k is in need of work but just threw it in to show you could get a house for that type of money – credit union might even give you enough for it a mortgage of 40k costs about 200 per month
I lived out that way for a few years and you’re not factoring in the true cost…
- Extra diesel costs (about €100 per week on your average 2L)
- Tolls (4-return on the M3 plus another 2-return on the M50 if you have to cross it)
- Extra wear and tear on the car (servicing, tyres etc)
.. I did that trip for a year and all told I spent about €600 monthly to commute into Dublin. Unless you can be flexible with your start/finish times as well you’ll be leaving at around 6am and not back till 7/8 most nights too!
It would appear our Government considers it more lucrative for the state ‘s coffers to sit on its hands now and await development land price recovery rather than enact policies to stimulate immediate and badly needed construction activity, given chronic housing shortage particularly around our capital city.
If the double effers were in power, this wouldn’t happen!
I’m dreading getting back into the rental market but it’s The only way we’re going to be able to get out of our duplex. We are in major negative equity and we’d never get a new mortgage. So we’re going to have to rent out our place while renting somewhere else but looking at rents it’s gonna be hard even then.
Stop trying to buy the election with tax cuts and spend the money on housing. Stop sticking 3 bed semis everywhere and make more use of well designed and planned apartment living.
That sir would require a government with some joined up thinking.
Unfortunately the crowd we are stuck with are ‘water privatistation’ one trick pony.
Don’t forget to vote.
Interest relief on buy-to-let was reduced to 70% of cost, interest only mortgages coming to an end, interest rate increases as many lost their low rates as bank arrangements were restructured, property tax introduced, rents dropped by 40% 2009/2010. It’s been an absolute disaster for investors. Average property has probably lost €25k in rent alone for investors over that 5/6 years and maybe a further €5k in interest disallowed. That lost rent would have paid 15/20% off capital alone.
Nobody will sympathise but most investors, who are essentially providing for their own pensions, were incentivised to invest in our dilapidated cities. It’s bad news for tenants but banks, investors, taxpayers and government all need rent increases to recover lost rent and pay down mortgages and collect more tax!
Brenda never commuted so
I think the IDA should continue to push more emphasis on startups & developments outside of the capital, engage more on foreign investment to other cities & communities around the country so there’s less pressure on an already struggling transport network around Dublin. I’m sure they’re doing a god job of this already but more effort needed
The head photo shows there is no shortage of ESB wires!
Media have a part to play too
As long as voters repeatedly vote for Private Club (lobby influenced) Political Parties then they will continue to be ripped off by the same financial predators:-
- Landlords who Max their Rent
- Banks who Max their Debt
- Political Parties who Max their Tax.
Where is that figure of break even build cost of €1300 a month in rent for a 2 bed apartment coming from?
What are his figures for that as it sounds bogus to me.
have your say