Property website daft.ie has released its latest report, which shows that market rents in the first three months of 2022 were almost 12% higher than those in the same period last year.
The summation is based on the rents that property owners are seeking from perspective tenants, and doesn’t reflect what tenants are paying in existing tenancies.
The average market rent between January and March stood at €1,567 per month, which was up almost 3% on the last three months of 2021. The report indicates that market rents are now more than double the low of €765 per month seen in late 2011.
Other statistic show that while inflation in market rents is currently above 10%, and market rents have doubled over the past decade, ‘stayer’ rents are thought to have increased by just 1.5% over the past year and by less than 40% over the past 10 years.
Ronan Lyons, Trinity College Economics Professor and author of the reports comments that, “In Dublin, the gap in rent increases since 2017 between movers – at 28% – and stayers – at 15% – is smaller than in the rest of the country, where it’s 50% versus 6%. But nonetheless, these substantial gaps across all markets raise awkward questions about the focus over the last few years by policymakers on protecting rents for sitting tenants.”
Calculations from daft.ie illustrate that there were just 851 homes available to rent on 1 May.
That is down from over 3,600 properties available a year ago and another new all-time low in a series that extends back over 15 years to 2006. According to daft.ie, “The recent fall in homes to rent is seen in all regions of the country, with an 81% fall in availability in Dublin and a 66% fall elsewhere in the country.”
Lyons said that the number of homes available on the open market “has collapsed” in the last year.” As ever, in a rental market dogged by chronic and worsening shortage of homes, the only real solution is to increase the number of homes. With more pressure from certain quarters to stop new rental homes being built, policymakers must hold their nerve,” he concluded.
LSL Auctions, LSL News.