Rent surge shows housing crisis ‘is now out of control’
RENTS shot up again in the past year, and are now close to where they were during the peak of the property boom in Dublin.
Rents rose by almost 9pc nationwide in the year to September, new figures from the Private Residential Tenancies Board (PRTB) show.
Homeless charity the Simon Community said the new figures showed that the housing crisis is now out of control.
It now costs €900 a month to rent a private property, up around €70 compared with last year.
Almost one in five households in the country now rents its accommodation in the private sector.
Rents have risen so much that nationally they are just 11pc below the peak reached at the end of 2007.
However, in Dublin, rents are just 2.3pc lower than the highest point reached eight years ago. Outside Dublin, rents rose by 8.5pc in the three months to September when compared with the same period last year.
The survey, which is based on the actual rents paid, shows that the rent for an apartment nationally was €945, up from €866 last year.
The average cost nationwide of renting a house is now €873, some €63 a month higher than a year ago, the State’s rental regulator said.
In Dublin, it now costs €1,408 a month to rent a house, and €1,265 for an apartment. A year earlier, the rent for a house was €1,288, and for an apartment it was €1,169.
This represents a monthly increase in Dublin rent of €120 for a house and €96 for an apartment over the course of the 12-month period.
Director of the PRTB Anne Marie Caulfield pointed out that new tenancy legislation means that rents can only be increased once in a 24-month period, up from once in a 12-month period.
“The legislation also provides that 90 days’ advance notice must be given prior to any increase. Previously it was 28 days.”
The Simon Community warned that rising rents are continuing to push more people into homelessness. Spokeswoman Niamh Randall said the PRTB report “provides further evidence of a housing crisis that is out of control”.
The Irish Property Owners’ Association said rents were still too low for many landlords to make money. Meanwhile, the Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers claimed that rents will have risen even more in the final three months of the year because of new rent certainty measures.