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PROPERTY WEBSITE DAFT.IE has seen an increase in advertisements for rental property in Dublin since the coronavirus outbreak hit the tourism sector.
Ronan Lyons, Daft.ie economist said there has been a general increase in the number of available rentals across the country over the last 18 months, but there is a particular trend he has noticed in the data from the start of March in the capital.
The number of rental ads is up in March so far, by about 13% nationally.
He said almost all of that increase is concentrated in Dublin (303 of the 353 extra listings) and half of the Dublin increase is concentrated in what might be termed the most in-demand property type and area for the short-term rental market – one and two-bed properties in Dublin city centre.
This segment has seen a 64% increase in listings since the start of the month – with 396 ads so far, compared to 242 in the same period last year.
“The increase in the number of properties advertised for rent so far in March is likely to be related to the collapse in tourism and thus the fall in demand for short-term rentals,” Lyons said.
Most of the country has seen almost no change in properties advertised to rent, compared to a year ago. But the number of smaller properties in central Dublin – where demand for short-term lets is concentrated – has grown by almost two-thirds. Close to 400 one- and two-bed properties were advertised in under three weeks, up 150 from the same period last year.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, Lyons said the drop in tourism as a result of the coronavirus measures in Ireland and around the world may have been a “trigger” for property owners who were using their apartments for short-term lettings on a fulltime basis to get out of that market.
Last year new short-term letting regulations came into effect around Ireland.
Under these new laws, home-sharing on platforms such as Airbnb are only allowed where a house is a person’s primary residence inside designated ‘rent pressure zones’.
Home-sharing – people renting out a part or all of their home for a period of time, usually to tourists who are visiting the country – operates under strict limits and is monitored by local authorities.
This is difficult to enforce, however, Lyons said, and the recent increase in listings may indicate some property owners were continuing to flout the regulations until the current situation took away the tourism option for them.
“I suspect that’s probably the case, they don’t know when this will be resolved and they’re thinking there’s no point relying on sparse tourism demand for six months, and maybe a crackdown is coming anyway because of the new regulations so they’re thinking they might as well [change].”
While there has been a noticeable increase in available properties, Lyons said the scale is still small compared to overall need.
He said the Dublin rental market typically needs 1,000 homes a week to keep rents affordable.
“Thus, while a one-off shift from the short-term to long-term rental market may be welcome news for many, it does not change the huge underlying need to build new rental homes.”
Note: Journal Media Ltd has shareholders in common with Daft.ie publisher Distilled Media Group.
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Good news for renters. Following on from the collapse in the trolley crisis. It seems this virus has some upsides.
@DeWitt: Not really, the wages will drop as well.
@DeWitt: 16 people on trolles nationwide last Friday
@DeWitt: Long term, there will be more upsides to this than you can shake a stick at. Unfortunately there will be a lot more downsides in the short term that will go on into the medium to long term. But expect to see the end of the Central Bank system, Globalism, Neo-liberalism, the petro dollar (it only benefits the US if they are a net oil importer and if they want to be in a constant state of war, which they don’t under the current administration). There will also be a debt jubilee to bring in whatever new monetary system they have in store, after a few failed attempts by the IMF & World Bank to salvage our current situation. All the above is pretty much written in stone IMO. So plenty good to go with the bad.
@Burn_the_Witch: I’ve been hoping for this kind of wholescale upheaval to our crappy monetary system since I first learned how money is ultimately created and the horrendous game of musical chairs we use to do it, but do you really believe this crisis will manage to kill off that beast? If the world wars couldn’t do it, I have my doubts unfortunately.
@Patrick FitzGerald: Good man Patrick. Nice to meet someone who can see the upside in the downside. I absolutely believe this to be the case. Let’s see what we’ve got stewing in the pot.
Russia and Saudi doing their best to crush the American Oil industry.
$250Billion being lent to banks to keep them afloat each and every night since November on the repo market ($25 Billion was the avg. up to then).
Deutche Bank, the worlds biggest derivatives holder on life support.
Central banks can’t lower rates any further to fight recession.
Record unemployment and company closures on the way.
I could go on and on but only 800 characters.
I’ll continue below.
@Patrick FitzGerald: Trump in my opinion wants to nationalise the Fed and dump the petroleum dollar system for a gold backed $. He’s dismantling the globalist trade deals which only work for America because of the petro dollar, but are bad for the US domestically. He’s been putting everything in place for the past three years to make the transformation. He’s cheapening the dollar to weaken the fed but strengthen trade. He’s even racking up the debt as he knows when the world monetary system crashes, there will be a debt jubilee as there has been throughout history back to biblical times. He even put his guy in charge of the world bank. It all makes perfect sense. When? He was hoping in his 2nd term I’m sure, but looks like everything is set up to go pretty soon with the coming collapse.
Should make it easier to find people who were breaking the law. Compare March listings with February
covid 19 will cause another recession, over 200,000 jobs will be lost, house and fuel prices will plummet, chaos!
@Nakedcleanersireland.com: They’re expect over 500,000 jobs to go. This will take years to recover from unless the ECB just starts printing money and putting it into people’s bank account.
So many people think we can just lockdown for weeks and everything will just go back to normal. So many on here commenting last week seem to have disappeared this week as the reality of this sets in.
@Nakedcleanersireland.com: House prices will plummet? That’s a problem? Tell that to my son who trying to scrape a deposit together and a mortgage.
@Ian Breathnach: what needs to happen is any debt owed to China needs to be cancelled. Instead that money would be put back into world economies most hit by the crisis. Already businesses are taking class action law suits against the Communist Government of China.
Typical. Their flush fund has dried up and now they looking to the people they ignored for years to help them. Heard Airbnb host on Newstalk this morning playing the hero. Donating her apt to people who have to isolate. Why didn’t she offer her hospitality to all the homeless families in hotel rooms??
There ya have it. AirBNB took away much needed supply. I hope our next government has the courage to ban this business. If you want to run a hotel, run a hotel, and apply for permission to do so.
Short term rentals are a plague, and as we can see now, one of the biggest contributing factors to the rent crisis.
I would imagine a lot of the availability is down to renters moving back home – whether thats Krakow or Castlebar – and giving up their apartments. I have noticed nearly all the cars gone from my apartment block over the past week, and these cars didnt belong to airbnb renters.
Just remember this is not all landlords and most comply with the rules.
Why don’t all landlords rent now to the people whom you turned your noses up to The homeless people and in doing so can save the lives as they are living on top of 1 another in hostile s as I really worry for this cohort of society and shame and you
Renters pulling out of Air B and B going back to basics to earn money
We are going to see a glut of rental properties and falling rents, just like post 2008, and it will have nothing at all to do with Airbnb.
@Joan Murray: Where will people emigrate to? China?!
@SC: who mentioned emmigrating? A huge number of post 2017 immigrants will go back to their home countries, and in fact a huge number of non-nationals have already left, before their own borders are closed and all flights in and out were suspended. Do you really think a spanish couple who havle lost jobs are going to risk being trapped in Dublin for upwards of 3 months, unable to get home to their families? Most people renting in D 1 to D6 are incomers, not locals. In the Docklands you hardly hear an Dublin accent, in the streets, shops, restaurants or bars. That is why there is already a glut of rentals.
It’s an ill wind
Be in no doubt that Air BnB is contributing to the housing crisis but they have obviously got FG in their back pocket so will get away with it.
Vultures.
LIKELY?????
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