Average rental prices across Dublin are now €500 above boomtime figures, according to Daft.ie’s quarterly bulletin. The rise means that Dublin rental prices now stand at €1,936, and have risen for the ninth consecutive quarter. This is an increase of 13.4% since the same time last year. Dublin hosts just 1,397 available properties.
The average national monthly rent for June now stands at €1,304 per month. This is a 10% jump on the figure from the same time last year. The figure is a €274 per month increase on last year, and €560 more than higher than the lowest point in 2011.
Limerick city saw the highest increase in rent, with 20.7% higher rent prices than this time last year. Waterford also saw an increase of 19.3%, and Galway city experienced a rise of 15.9% in the same period. Cork city also saw rents increases of 10.5% across the county, with 12.8% rises in Cork city.
Cork is also the second most expensive city for rent prices, with an average monthly cost of €1,266. It is followed by Galway on €1,189, Limerick costing €1,109 and Waterford experiencing prices of €921.
The report noted that there has been a small increase on the amount of rental properties, with 3,070 properties available at the beginning of the month. This is a 4.8% increase on the same time last year. However, the study notes that availability is at its lowest point in 12 years, excluding the month of August 2017.
President of Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU), Shane De Rís contributed to the report, authoring its introduction. He believes that students are being forced “to scrape the bottom of the barrel”.
He criticised purpose built student accommodation, where he pointed out that students could pay up to €249 euro a week. He said that these were not “attractive to the student from a middle income family in Clare or Tipperary but to international students”.
The author of the report Ronan Lyons, an economist at Trinity, noted that the level of rental accommodation currently available was “woefully inadequate”. He also pointed out that the available stock was not suitable for demand, and that as a result rents would continue to rise.
Lyons stated: “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.” Daft.ie has also noted that it is seeing over 1,000 property searches on its website every minute. This is because of the demand for rental accommodation ahead of the new college year.
This comes only a day after the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) passed a motion to lobby the government to implement regulation of Airbnb services. According to USI President Síona Cahill, there is an “atrocious situation” currently ongoing in the capital.
She noted that “legislation needs to be formulated, in line with best European practice in particular, to tackle this culture of vacant housing for massive profit”. She also pointed out that this practice has “a negative impact on students and available accommodation”.
This news comes during a series of housing occupations across the capital. Housing activists vacated a house in the Summerhill area of Dublin yesterday morning, following 10 days inside. However, these activists are occupied another property in the Frederick Street North area of Dublin later in the day. They have also recently partaken in the Trans Pride march to highlight the housing crisis in the capital.