Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
RENTS IN DUBLIN are now higher than they were at the peak of the housing boom.
New figures from the Residential Tenancies Board show that, after plummeting from their peak in the final quarter of 2007, average rents in Dublin have since risen and risen to the point that they are now 0.2% higher than that high-water mark.
In the market outside of Dublin rents are rising at a much slower pace and are still 13.9% below their 2007 peak.
All these figures are up on yearly bases but the figures also show that rental increases are slowing.
At a national level, rent levels rose by 0.5% in the first quarter of 2016. This is compared to a growth rate of 1.6% in the same period last year.
Monthly rents for houses are now marginally lower, by 0.3% in the latest figures, while rents for apartments were 1.8% higher than the end of 2015.
Despite the relative cooling of price increases, their consistent growth over the past year means that prices are significantly above what they were at this time in 2015.
In monetary terms, the stats show that the average rent in Dublin is now €1,454 for a house and €1,306 for an apartment. Last year these stood at €1,342 and €1,208.
Nationally, the average monthly rent for an apartments is €972 and €900 for a house. Last years these were €885 and €835.
All these figures are based on actual rents paid rather than asking prices and come from new agreements signed in the first three months of this year.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
€1,545 for a house on Dublin? I’m paying €1,470 for an apartment so that’s conservative.
€1,545 not far off 3 times my mortgage payment in the north west.
I’m in Dublin 15, it’s a relatively nice part of Dublin but 3 bedroom houses in absolute hell holes here are going for €1400 and houses in the nicer parts (but not Castleknock, they’re even more expensive) are closer to €2000. It’s absolute madness and families are finding it very hard to find housing as landlords are opting for 3/4 professionals instead. This is a crisis, no other word does the situation justice.
Can earn not far off average national wages in Waterford or Wexford but get an apartment for €600 -700 and have a lot of spare change in the pocket each month.
Large numbers of people are homeless, crushed under extortionate rents or buried under mortgage debt because a small number of people get very very rich from this state of affairs. This is naked capitalism in in all of its ugly glory. Profit is everything. People are just labour and consumer units to be exploited to maximum effect.
the country is booming again says fg !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No Bobby it’s booming according to all other studies. The sad truth is I don’t think you would be happy if ireland was rated the happiest in the world.
Ireland is:
No 6 in the world of best places to live according to human development index (hdi)
No 3 best place to raise a family according to Unicef
No 10 happiest, richest, healthiest and crime free country
Fine gael lie spin talk do nothing to solve problems there only good at creating problems like fianna fail
Greg,
The Legatum Institute whose data you linked to are a neo liberal think tank founded by billionaire venture capitalist Christopher Chandler.
So it’s not surprising that they would rank Ireland very highly as it’s a nation whose establishment worships the free market model which has enriched its founder. So for example we see NAMA presiding over a property feeding frenzy for the speculative vultures while the humanitarian crises of homelessness rages.
I wonder how highly this terminally ill child sleeping in a car would rate our brave little “Republic”?
http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/housing-crisis-2679373-Mar2016/
Greg, this is where people come to moan about the country and the government. Optimism has no place here.
Bull
And the government wonder why people cant afford to buy houses??? With the average wage in this country and those rental prices, no one could save for a deposit!!!
The country is fine.. this is a problem in Dublin
This problem is not Dublin Specific!
It’s not just Dublin anymore, it has spread to commuter counties. Cork and Galway are also expensive now too.
Looking at rents in Galway would suggest you are right
Oroku, yes it is. Rental prices still below peak everywhere around the country except for Dublin where they have reached a new peak. It’s in the article.
Your average 3 Bed house in Drogheda has gone from about €700 in 2011 to about €1300 now. Its a load of bollocks, a big glorious unsustainable property bubble which will eventually come crashing down.
Just spend less money on drinking, smoking, holiday, entertainment, social life, night club, new car, and you will have enough deposit to buy a house.
Stop having any sort of a life then Sean is it?
Damien,
If you were rich, you could have both life and house. But for working class, you will have to make a choice. If you wanna enjoy your life, then stop complaining.
I understadn where you are coming from Sean but there should be a happy medium, I mean after years of education with the goal of being upworthy mobile in terms employment, you shouldn’t be crippled with unfair rents, I understand this is the nature of supply and demand but surely there should be some effort put in to reduce massive increases in rent. Maybe i’m just a bickering socialist with this view…
Sean, you’re not Wong there.
Damien, You can’t say market is unfair as market is determined by demand and supplies. There is no point here to complain as complaining would barely change anything. You have to change yourself to adapt it rather than make the society adapt you.
Nothing but meaningless platitudes, Sean Wong. When someone who is working full-time can barely afford the rent for the roof over their heads – let alone the odd night out, meal out etc. – there is something wrong with the system.
“But sure, no point complaining, nobody listens. So just shut up, bend over and deal with it”
Meaty, the system is as fragile as nature. There will be summer and there will be winter. If you were not rich enough, you would better buy winter cloth in summer as they are cheaper in summer, and then you will never complain you can’t afford winter cloth when the winter comes.
Again, a pretty sounding comment, but it is ultimately meaningless.
It’s not a force of nature – it can be controlled, regulated, and is man-made. The political will is just not there with our current and previous governments, who are very close to landlords and developers who at the end of the day just want to make a profit. They couldn’t care less about the reality of people struggling to afford to stay in their homes.
Is that you Enda?????
Time to get the finger out and start building upwards. There is a problem here and the solution is obvious.
Enough solutions on the ground to meet demand for decades to come. Everyone wants to build up but nobody wants to raise a family in such bilidings. Let’s create homes and communities not high rises
But how come everywhere else in Europe, decent apartments can be built where families with four children can be happily raised? There is absolutely nothing wrong with building up. It’s just never been done right in Ireland.
Building up means decent services and more green space. Stockholm has the same number of people per square km as Dublin, and only a slightly bigger population. Yet the city is 33% water, 33% green and 33% urban. There are forests in the city. There are three metro lines, soon to be four. Because of building up (and they don’t even build that tall in Stockholm – nine floors would be tall), decent services can be provided to the population. How can decent services be provided in a city like Dublin where virtually everyone insists on having a front and back garden and the population ends up being spread over a large area?
Not in the type of apartments that Zoë Developments had been building: shoeboxes for singletons.
There has to be a more healthy mix of apartment sizes that are conducive to family life for families of various sizes… Not every couple want two kids, not every couple want to stop at two. Apartment configurations should reflect trends but also accommodate outliers.
Also, the services must be available locally, on the ground-floors of these blocks. Schools, crèches, shops, medical centres, pharmacies, even Garda stations could all reside on the ground-floors of high-rise developments. Parks and playgrounds MUST also be provided.
I know that I’d much prefer a vertical commute in a lift above my long train commute any day.
Like families do in other countries? Stop thinking Ballymun towers…that was bad planning not bad building. An taisce, nimbys and An Bord Pleanala are as much to blame for this mess as anyone.
Irish have no experience building up and it will be a challenge to build high rise that will fit current architecture and style of the Dublin city. Remember it’s a windy country too. In Europe it’s done differently plus nobody is really building very high anymore (not talking some cases of office space / flat experiments as these still are still being built) – ie. usually it’s 4 to 6 floors max. You simply won’t achieve quality of living in apartment taller than 4 to 6 floors max – and they are quickly becoming rental ghettos. In Europe you don’t usually have massive greens like in Dublin (not even in the suburbs) – can not this be better used? What about lots of unfinished estates and empty fields inside them?
Would families then be in a bidding war with investors ?
The debate for high rise is over, developers sucessfully lobbied goverment to allow for smaller box size apartments. They will build, when it suits them for max profit and families will be ignored.
Ballymun failed due to management of the building more than any other reason. Effectively they filled the towers with people with the most social issues.
You have hit the nail on the head Kal lpers
There are various buildings boarded up around the city (Dolphins barn, Theresa’s gardens) where there is absolutely no issue with the buildings themselves, but the people housed therein.
The majority of people paying 1000+ euro a month rent have to get out to work to earn it, they respect the property that they’re paying for and do their best to maintain it.
Someone with 59+ convictions for anti-social behavior and paying nothing towards rent isn’t going to integrate into any development, they will just be a nuisance and a menace to everyone around them and drag the place down.
Rent control is the only way to fix this. People need to live, not just exist. I pay about €700/month for a two-bed apartment in Stockholm because of rent controls.
But a Dáil filled with landlords is never going to even dream of such a measure. Such a massive conflict of interests is one of the main causes of this crisis.
Well I can’t afford a new BMW. Should the government put a cap on the price of BMW. If you can’t afford to rent where the prices are high move somewhere they’re not high.
Unfair comparison of a luxury item to a necessity like a home.
That’s sound thinking, shure wouldn’t it be grand if Dublin was filled only with middle class professionals and all the other workers needed to keep it running moved away?
Great logic there sir!
As Lynch said, you don’t need a BMW. You need a home, and you need to get around. Terrible and all as the public transport system is, the government does put a cap on how much can be charged to get around the city, be that with CIÉ or with taxis. There’s a fair comparison.
Be less of an idiot.. in your scenario then if “I can’t afford to live in this country I should emigrate”, look at what’s happened over the last 8 years, we’ve lost some of our best and brightest. You go were the jobs are and no one should be commuting more than 3 hrs/day.. it’s not joe soaps fault all the jobs are in Dublin. Build upward in places along luas and dart lines and invest heavily in more infrastructure.. that way I don’t even have to consider if I can afford a bmw or not.. idiot..
Lynchtrea. Perhaps living in Dublin now is a luxury. Look at London. It not uncommon to commute long distances to work there.
A luxury in the terms that you might be closer to your work?
Yeah but London is about three times the size. Some people might live in Fulham and still commute.
Dublin could do alot more before we have to live in Tip and commute. Build up…London a traditional low rise city (but taller than Dublin) is starting to build up.
Having a roof over your and your kids heads is a necessity! Is having a BMW a necessity ? Idiotic way of thinking mickmc! I agree that people could look into moving it’s exactly what we did when we could no longer pay Dublin Rent prices but at the same time it’s very tough to leave your entire support system and family and friends behind. Taking children out of school and possibly having to look for a new job. We moved for cheaper rent but the problem we face now is there is less work in more remote places where rent is cheap ! My husband is an electrician which means going from contract to contract and guess where most of the work is ? DUBLIN ! where we can’t afford to rent ! It’s an impossible situation.
Mick, I am being priced out of Dublin but I have one child in college here and another starting in September (doing the LC now). I have other children in school too and it’s unrealistic to suggest that everyone move out of Dublin. It’s not like in the UK where there are Universities everywhere, student housing to accommodate them, decent part time job opportunities, public transport links etc. We are barely getting by now, rent takes up the bulk of our income now and we simply couldn’t afford to live away from Dublin. Our children would have to drop out of college and that is just not right or fair. Working families need to be helped just as much as everyone else.
Lots of foreign speculative money pouring into London residential property has chased out the locals.
That’s exactly what’s killing San Francisco. Overpaid tech workers hoovering up a limited supply of housing and pushing rents sky high and forcing anyone else out;– and they’ve had rent control for decades. There’s a danger in pushing your economy to a focus on tech-sector jobs without thinking through the consequences, intended or otherwise.
It called supply and demand. Simple economic. Dublin like most European capital is becoming an expensive place to live. If you cannot afford to live there move out. It not as if your be asked to moved to outer Mongolia.
mickmc … supply and demand? With 250,000 homes boarded up and vacant around the country, vulture funds buying all they can and for cents on the Euro. That’s a very rigged supply and demand market.
One reason they’ve jumped is because of the measures introduced by the last Government. Rent increases can now happen only once every two years, so presumably most landlords will raise rents to where they think they might be in two years time.
Rent rises have slowed in comparison woth the time before the legislation. If anything it did the opposite to what you are saying
Why exactly is there a pic of fireworks over Dublin? This is nothing to celebrate. I came back from Oz in December and I’m one of those who feel homeless yet living at home.
Reading this make me sad, and also realise that I most likely won’t return home to Ireland. It’s not living, it’s existing when paying rents like that. Greed really has destroyed or little country. Nothing was learned from the Celtic tiger days and the bust that followed. So many of the young people who have left Ireland won’t return, and many going to college now don’t view a future in Ireland once they graduate. Rent control needs to be brought in, systems need to be put in place to ensure that living in Ireland does not cost so much that a better option is to leave and take valuable education and skills with you. In the long term, Ireland will suffer far worse than what it did when the bubble went pop, and for longer. The Government need to look past the lifetime of the Dail and plan for 20+ years ahead. Not just the short term vote catching timescales. Forward thinking is what will help. Long term Capital investment.
Same. Living somewhere like London and paying a fortune is fine. It’s a huge vibrant metropolitan city which supports so many types of lifestyle. I can pay £2 for a good lunch or £200.
Dublin isn’t the same, it’s small and it’s ridiculously expensive across the board.
Every now and then I think about moving home, then I look at what I have here and what I’d get back in Ireland (and even if I would get a job in the very “who you know” market) and realise how lucky I am. Sad, but true.
Alan Kennedy, it is presumptuous of me to offer a view because I don’t know your precise circumstances but living here in Ireland’, I advise yiu talented people to emigrate and family not to return. Ireland is extremely dysfunctional.
Ireland is not a country for old people or for young people. If you are wealthy and well connected, Ireland is a lovely place but it is increasingly unaffordable for most of us.
It is sad that our very best are leaving and most of them are not returning. Ireland is broken, largely but not entirely due to political failure and the favouritism to the super wealthy at the expense of others.
Ireland is hardly broken.
We are constantly named as within the best 10 countries to live in by every major survey.
No. 6 in human development index
No. 7 on unicef list as best places to raise a family
No. 10 as happiest,healthiset, richest and most crime free
Greg, I have been watching your posts the last few days, you write absolute crap, including your statistics above. You obviously haven’t a clue. Period.
John which statistic are you disputing? I can give you the source? I did already on one above
This one http://www.joe.ie/news/ireland-has-been-named-in-the-top-10-places-to-live-in-the-world/523697
Or perhaps unicef report via news article here:
Greg, ireland truly is one of the greatest countries to live in. Every Irish Expat like myself will confirm you that and longs to move back home, but we can’t afford it. Simple as. I live in Dubai which is crazy expensive for so many things, but its affordable, you get a good lifestyle and get to put some money aside. I’ve never been able to do that to the same extent back home. Horrible catch 22….
Greg and Connor,
I would agree totally that Ireland is a great country to live in and I completely agree, it is extremely hard to put money aside, but this is mainly due to ridiculous tax regimes and a brutal attempt at wealth equalization.
It appears from various live leak videos, that countries that sustain super wealthy people along side the super poor seem to have horrendous crime rates. Not that we don’t have crime, but the proportion of people that seem to commit crimes out of pure desperation seems to be minimal here.
While I do get annoyed sometimes that I get up at 6am to go to work to pay for a 500,000 euro house I bought in the boom meanwhile social and affordable tenants next door pay 26 euro a week and sleep in until noon, I would prefer that situation than have them out on the street trying to car jack / stab me on the way to work!
That said, I don’t understand why people think they deserve a roof over their head in areas where others are working their hardest to pay for their homes! There has to be some incentive to work and climb the ladder. I have heard one of social tenants encouraging her kids to have more babies to get larger houses and increase payments, if there is no incentive for them to become productive members of society, they won’t and they aren’t going to be “weaned” onto the ladder by job bridge or working 40+ hours a week at minimum wage!
The crazy thing is that we have politions banging on telling all the Irish that left during the crash to come home, what to? Can’t get car insurance, pay huge unrealistic rents and deposits, massive childcare costs, and all the while being told to keep the recovery going. Recovery for who exactly, our td’s.
It’s nothing but sheer greed. Seems not much has been learned since the Celtic tiger years.
Excessive Rents are about evaporating income out of lower and middle income earners and channelling it to those who are already wealthy enough.
Apartments are now as expensive to rent as houses used to be different ….an apartment for one person under 1000€ is impossible to find ..no wonder families are struggling to find a house if a single person can’t even find an apartment they can pay …all going downhill , rent rises – means homelessness rises – action needs be taken
I was paying €1100 for a 1 bed apartment in Delgany, Co Wicklow and had to move out as the rent along with utilities were crippling.
i found a 1 bed apt for 600 a month it’s not great but im happy out there a lot of it comes down to luck
So many people I know were given notice in places they have rented for years, just last Christmas. The introduction of rent control has been botched and driven rents even higher. The people I know who were renting were in stable jobs.
The greed in this country is a disgrace, but of course we as a country will never ever learn. Might as well vote Bertie Ahern back in.
And landlords claim to be destitute!
I’m not a landlord but I manage property.
As I’m on a percentage as rents go up I make more per house but my business is dropping like a stone because landlords are getting out of the business as fast as possible. I’ve lost 2 houses in the last week, 4 since February.
I recently rented a house 12 families came to see it, 8 of them were looking to move because there landlord had sold or was looking to sell.
It’s not just accidental landlords but guys in the business 20 plus years.
I’m not claiming their destitute but claims they are minting it doesn’t add up
That’s true. Being a landlord is more trouble than it’s worth. Landlords, because of government interference are leaving the sector and putting their money where it’s less stressful. That’s another reason rents are up. Landlords abandoning the sector. Leftist governments think private landlords should take up the social housing slack, landlords think differently. Once bitten by bad tenants, twice shy.
Agreed
Vast majority of tenants are just trying to get along like anyone else.
Consulted on a problem house recently (not one of mine thankfully) where a tenant paid the first month and deposit and that was it, took a further 7months to get him out. €10,000 in lost rent, €6,000 in legal fees and now the landlord has to fix the house.
A lot of landlords would trade rent certainty for a much faster way of dealing with the problems
I wish they would drop so I could move back to Dublin where my family and friends are ! It kills me we had to move 3 hours drive away because of rent prices.
Give landlords a tax break and rents will fall.the reason rents are rising is all down to the heavy tax,usc and prsi burden on landlords rental income
SJW’s with government and without must take some of the responsibility for this. They penalise private landlords, make it too expensive to do business, they get rid of the bedsits which served a very useful housing function, they introduce rent controls which generally work the opposite as another poster said out of fear a landlord will make the rent now as as high as he can because it will serve as the base for future rent increases. They make it more difficult to evict difficult tenants so landlords won’t take risks on renting to non professionals like they would have before. Thy make the PRTB which is actually an advocacy quango for tenants a tool in the landlord battering arsenal. The left hates landlords and the left can take full responsibility for the shortage of housing. Who’d choose to be a landlord today.
Almost 10 years on from the last bubble bursting and we’ve done nothing to avert another on. We just seem to love an auld crisis.
When is this madness going to end?
Diogenes, when vested interest doesn’t hold sway. A select few are making a fortune out of this. Be it renting, mortgaging, or evicting.
One word- greed.
It’s odd that landlords are claiming financial penury at a time when rents are severely inflating.
This is what happens when the ‘market’ decides. Neo-liberal capitalism in all it’s glory. 425€ for a reasonnable studio flat + 25€ charges (cleaning of the halls and stairways, bins being put out, general maintainance) per month in Lyon that hasn’t increased in 3 years. I could get bigger for less in other parts of the city. But no, France is too ‘lefty’ for many Irish peoples tastes.
Bubble
Unfortunately a bubble which will continue to inflate because of extreme mismatch between demand and supply.,
If you saw the TV3 documentary ‘Firetrap Homes’ you should view the following documentary, which you will see for yourself the fraudulent certification and criminality that has gone on and continues to do so within the Irish construction industry, aided and abetted by state authorities. Here is the link to the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LHGwwlC8rs
The problem is mortgage rules became so restrictive after the crash that very few young people trying to get onto the property ladder can’t afford it. So are forced to rent putting extra pressure on the rental market. Then add to that the lack of Houses being built over the past 7 years also exacerbates an already dire situation.
Agreed Mick
And throw in landlords leaving the business and you have a perfect storm
Rent is INSANE up here. Between rent, paying for a car (to commute to work), tax, insurance, maintaining a car and general living I have nothing left at the end of the month. Impossible to save. I spent years training for my job to come out with nothing. The cost of living in Dublin is also madness.
A speculative market in development land has driven site values through the roof and developers are not yet satisfied with the ambitious profit margin they want to build. Add the wariness of banks to lend and indeed the limited capacity of the banks to lend, combined with the equity required from the banks to lend and you will continue to have a major obstacle to significant new builds. So, supply will remain very low.,
The add to the demand side, the desperate need for lower income families for private rented properties because they cannot get social housing.
The add the new large corporate landlords who are highly selective about who they will rent to.
Add the return of students to university after the summer.
Add Government indifference and its ideological commitment to private solutions to a public crisis.
@Fiona deFreyne: Ya, developers nowadays…buy an apartment, do it up and sell / rent out for expensive… means lots of people don’t even stand a chance of ever being able to rent or buy a place. This creates a kind of two class society. Those who can afford ad those who cannot. There is no in between.
And on the other hand side we still have lots of these ghost estates from the boom years falling to ruins, where developers grossly over-estimated their capacity and couldn’t get enough. (and banks almost throwing huge credits into investor’s arms). I understand why they are careful now on giving out mortgages. When the boom ended and there was not enough demand for new places anymore, the developers just went into insolvency, so they can’t be taken in responsibility anymore and the banks were left with the money unpaid and all those uninhabited ghost estates scattered across the country that could be so useful in providing the needed living space for people like low income or homeless. Now it may still be possible to get a grip and do them houses up before you have to demolish them completely….
Sad to say the situation with private residential rents can only get far worse whilst supply remains so short of demand.
Curious feature is that despite the severely increasing rents, so many landlords want to enter back into possession of rented properties for themselves or supposedly want to sell when rents are so high and will continue to get higher.
Build up stupid
Doesn’t matter.
Rents will still be high.
I am an “accidental landlord” I can only get €400 pm for a beautiful detached house on lovely gardens close to the seaside and all amenities – over the years I’ve spend more than I’ve got in rent on cleaning the place after the cannabis grow house tenant , the methadone tenant & the single father who pocketed the rent allowance , refused to pay rent yet it took me a year and cost a fortune to get him out. Have s lovely tenant now but believe me all the legislation is weighted in the favour of the tenant …. Iand lord life not much fun !!
wait for one of our ministers announce a new policy which will be due when they are long gone and in the mean time “shop around” as mary harney would say
MY APT IS 600 A MONTH BUT THERE’S A HOLE IN THE TOILET ROOF
Fix the bloody hole.
0.2% higher !!! Now that’s a smash if ever I’ve seen one
I’d wish I could afford my own place, even with a quite good salary the rents for a 1-Bed apartment in the Dublin suburb I live are too expensive for me. I am sharing for 10 years now and I am quite fed up of always just sharing. I want my own place… all my dirt, all my rubbish, no noisy people stomping up and down the stairs like a camel galloping down a horse race track and so on. I am just not into mortgages and taking the risk.
And if you see some of the apartments on offer, they are not that special as that the prices were justified. Some have a bad BER rating, so you will probably spend the rest of your salary on heating or they are being furnished with the cheapest of the cheap stuff they get somewhere for cheap, sadly not every landlord cares about living conditions as long as they earn from renting out a place.
have your say