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The cost of renting a home is now approaching €2,000 a month across the country. New figures show rents rose for the 15th quarter in a row, with the average monthly cost now €1,955. Rental costs are now 43pc higher than they were before the outbreak of Covid, according to the latest rental report from Daft.
ie. The report indicates that rents on new tenancy deals rose by an average of 1.7pc in the third quarter of this year.
Housing in general is a key issue in the general election. Inflation in rents in Dublin has accelerated in recent months, bringing it closer to rates seen elsewhere in the country. Across the country, the average property for rent in the three months to September was €1,955 per month, up 7.
2pc year on year. In the capital, rents in the third quarter of the year were 5.2pc higher than a year earlier.
This is twice the rate of inflation seen at the end of 2023. The average cost of a new rental tenancy in Dublin is now €2,476 a month. Elsewhere in the country, the rate of inflation is now 8.
9pc, down from 12.3pc. Market rents continue to rise sharply in Limerick city, where they were up 19pc in the last year.
Average monthly rents in Limerick city for new rental deals are now €2,221. Both Cork and Galway cities saw increases of just over 10pc. Cork city rents, for a new tenant, are now €2,077 a month.
In Galway city, new rental deals are advertised at €2,189 a month. Rents in Waterford city were up 5.8pc in the past year, to an average of €1,639.
Outside the cities, rents increased 8.3pc, to an average of €1,586. After 18 months of improving availability, the number of homes available to rent on the open market is falling.
On November 1, there were just over 2,400 homes available to rent across the country. This was down 14pc on the same date a year previously, and well below the 2015 to 2019 average of almost 4,400, Daft.ie said.
Ronan Lyons, the author of the report and an associate professor in economics at Trinity College Dublin, said the next government would have to give the same priority to the rental sector that had been given to owner-occupiers and to social housing over the last few years. Otherwise, conditions would not change, he said. “This latest rental report confirms the signals that emerged three months ago that upward pressure is building once more in Dublin,” he added.
Last year, Dublin got a large number of new rental homes, which meant it had very little inflation in rents, as supply and demand were largely in balance. Prof Lyons said the upswing in construction of rental homes in Dublin was over. “As the rate of building of rental homes continues to fall, Dublin is likely to resemble the rest of the country, where availability has been incredibly tight over the last three years, leading to dramatic increases in open-market rents,” he said.
The new government would have to address the lack of supply of private rental housing early in its term if it was to bring about a change in conditions similar to what Dublin enjoyed last year, Prof Lyons said..
