Dublin rental prices now €500-a-month higher than boom time as students 'left scraping the barrel'

RENTS ACROSS THE country have risen for the ninth consecutive quarter, with the Dublin average now €500 above the boomtime figure according to Daft.ie.

The latest quarterly bulletin from the property website paints a national picture of rents increasing across every county in the past year, the largest jump being over 20% in Limerick city.

The average monthly rent for June 2018 is now €1,304, a 10% jump on the figure for the same month last year.

Daft says that figure is €274 per month higher than the peak figure in 2008 and over €560 higher than the low seen in late 2011.

In Dublin, the rise even more dramatic with rents up by 13.4% over the past year. Rents in the capital now average €1,936, almost €500 more than the peak a decade ago.

Other cities have also experienced large jumps over the past 12 months. Rents in Limerick city were 20.7% higher than a year ago, in Waterford the increase was 19.3%. and in Galway the rise was 15.9% in the same period.

In Cork, rents rose across the county by 10.5% and by 12.8% in the city.

Rents are also increasing outside but at a slower rate, with the report stating that average rents are up by 10.4% across the country.

The consistent rises mean that the average rent nationwide has risen by just over 75% since bottoming out in late 2011.

Average monthly rent in Irish cities

• Dublin – €1,936
• Cork – €1,266
• Galway – €1,189
• Limerick – €1,109
• Waterford – €921

Daft.ie Daft.ie

The stats do point to a small increase in the availability of rental stock on the market, but report author Ronan Lyons argues that the supply still remains woefully inadequate.

The report states that there were 3,070 properties available to rent across the country at the beginning of this month, a 4.8% increase on the same time last year.

August 2017 was a record low however, and Daft.ie says availability is the lowest it’s been in 12 years except for that specific month last year.

The increase in availability was driven by Dublin where there were 1,397 properties on the market at the beginning of the month.

Despite this, Lyons argues that the type of property available is not matching up with demand, meaning that rents will continue to climb

“While urban apartments make up almost all the net need for new homes in the country as a whole, just 13% of new homes completed in the year to March were urban apartments.”

In that context, it is unsurprising to see rents rise once more. As before, with such a mismatch between supply and demand, policy must focus on dramatically increasing the construction of urban apartments, for both market and social housing needs.

The latest report is released in mid-August, traditionally one of the busiest times for new rentals ahead of the new college year, and Daft.ie says that it is currently seeing over a thousand property searches every minute on its website.

Crowds in Trinity College Dublin during a visit by British royals this year. PA Images PA Images

President of the Trinity College Student Union Shane De Rís also contributes to the report, saying that students are being “left to scrape the bottom of the housing barrel”.

De Rís criticises the glut of purpose-built student accommodation in Dublin, which he says is too expensive for most students.

TheJournal.ie has previously reported that some students living in such accommodation could be paying upwards of €249-a-week.

“The reality is that these-privately owned developments are priced way beyond the means of the vast majority of students, with weekly rates in excess of €230. These uber-luxurious complexes are attractive not to the student from a middle-income family in Clare or Tipperary, but to international students,” De Rís says.

Housing charity Threshold has also commented on the rental figures, saying that they offer evidence that the housing market is “broken”.

“Currently, the law provides that a tenant is to be informed of the previous rent but there is nothing to ensure this,” says Threshold’s John-Mark McCafferty.

“For this reason, Threshold is urgently calling for real and effective rent transparency measures to hold landlords to account and give potential and sitting tenants the details they need to make informed choices or to challenge an illegal rent setting at the Residential Tenancies Board.”

The full Daft.ie report can be read here >