RENT IN BRAY HAS BEEN GOING UP AND UP. NOW THE MONTHLY COST FOR A TWO BED APARTMENT HAS HIT A HUGE... €1,400
RENTAL costs in Bray have reached new highs, with the price of a two-bedroom apartment now setting people back €1,400 per month.
Prices have been increasing around the country, as supply decreases and demand goes up.
€1,000 will now not get you anywhere to live in the north of the county, with the exception of perhaps a granny-flat or bedsit.
The most expensive residence to rent in Bray is a three-bedroom house on Killarney Road for €2,250 per month, with the price of a one-bedroom apartment no less than €1,150.
In Greystones, the most expensive property is a four-bedroom house at €1,950 per month.
HOUSE prices in Wicklow continue to spiral out of control with prices in certain parts of the county reaching boom year levels.
In 2008, during the height of the property bubble, a three-bed home in Wicklow town cost an average of €1,015 per month to rent. According to the Rental Tenancies Board Quarter 2 report for 2016, the same property by the end of June was now €1,012 per month.
Deputy Pat Casey, the Fianna Fáil spokesperson on housing, said that the return to peak boom rents in the middle of a housing crisis was ‘a scandal demanding radical and immediate action.’
Back in 2013, a one-bed rental housing unit in Bray cost an average of €647 to rent. By the end of June 2016, the rent for the same unit had risen by 23 per cent to €824. The highest increase during this period was in Wicklow town where a one bedroom house went up by 28 per cent per month to €753 per month.
In west Wicklow, a one bed in Blessington was €710 in 2013, rising by 24 per cent in just three years to €930.
Renters are also being priced out of the market if they want to purchase accommodation in Wicklow. The Garden County now has the highest property prices in the country apart from Dublin with an average cost €303,000. The Residential Price Index reveals that the average house price in July for Greystones was €404,717 and €363,907 for Bray.
‘ This is way beyond the affordability of the vast majority of those seeking to buy a family home,’ said Deputy Casey.
The continued spike in rents and house prices is also putting Wicklow County Council under extreme pressure as the local authority tries to relieve an ever-expanding social housing waiting list.
Currently there are 3,886 people on the local authority housing waiting list.
Wicklow County Council currently has a housing stock of 4,500 units while eleven different projects at the planning stages will provide another 197 units.
Other schemes are also up for Department consideration. However, a lack of infrastructure has also resulted in yet more schemes falling by the wayside. Thirty units in Dunlavin and four in Blessington were turned down because of a lack of water and sewage capacity. Government funding for the Traveller Accommodation Programme has also been slashed in recent years.
Deputy Casey feels that ‘ the answer is to build more accommodation units by whatever means possible, new builds and renovations. The talking and squabbling has to end and actions must start delivering results that can be measured just as the failures seen here can be measured.’