For those renting, or looking to do so, the headline was grim enough: rents in Ireland jumped 13.7 per cent on average last year from already stratospheric levels.
But increasingly strict rent controls mean these are the increase in rents on similar-sized homes that are new to the rental market — or at least, have not been rented out over the past couple of years. What’s the position for those lucky enough to have already secured a place to rent?
Daft has been polling this cohort as well. It found that, on average, rents for sitting tenants have risen by 2.9 per cent a year over the past decade. In Dublin, where some of the tightest rental markets are, the figure was noticeably higher at 4.2 per cent while outside the capital it was a more reasonable 1.3 per cent.
That compares well with the average of 7.1 per cent a year for new tenancies over the same period but, nationally, that still means a tenant is likely to be paying almost 50 per cent more in rent last year than they were a decade ago. If they live in Dublin, the figure is closer to two-thirds more. And certainly, that 10-year average in Dublin sits well ahead of the current 2 per cent upper limit for rent increases in rent pressure zones that feature in most urban areas.
Romantasy, QuitTok and other words from a dystopia-coded year
Have Ireland’s data centre builders shot themselves in the foot through their own greed?
The old order of globalisation may be collapsing – and bringing Germany with it
Wonderwallets: the cost of everything in 2024, from Oasis tickets to Leinster House bike shelter
IT Business Person of the Year Barry Connolly: ‘I never really wanted to work for anyone else’
What about landlords? One way of looking at how well or otherwise they are doing is to examine the yield on their investment properties — the annual rent as a proportion of the market value of the property. According to the latest Daft figures, yields nationally range from just under 5 per cent on a four-bed house to a much more generous 9 per cent on a one-bed apartment.
Those figures fall as low as 3.4 per cent for a four-bed home in Dublin 6, one of the most expensive property markets in Ireland, where the yield on a one-bed apartment is also more modest at 5.5 per cent. In general, parts — but not all — of Dublin feature lower yields.
Ultimately, as other figures in the Daft report indicate, unless you are buying a large house in the most sought-after parts of Dublin’s commuter belt, it remains comfortably cheaper to pay a mortgage on a property in this State than to rent it —assuming you can persuade a bank to lend you the money to do so.