Exodus of small landlords creating rental emergency, says leading letting agent
A LEADING estate agent and author said the rental crisis is now ‘an absolute emergency’ and accused the Government of failing to act when there were clear signs of the turmoil engulfing the housing market.
Regina Mangan established Waterford’s first property letting and management company back in 1997, but said she has never seen it so bad.
She told the Irish Mail on
Sunday: ‘We have nurses who can’t get homes, we have doctors who can’t get homes, we have staff in hotels who can’t get homes… we have people crying in our office.
‘We have people who are extraordinarily desperate and absolutely nothing is being done to keep small property owners in the market.
‘It is an absolute emergency.’
The founder and managing director of Liberty Blue estate agency said you ‘can have anything from 100 to 200 people applying for one property’ at the moment, which she described as ‘a really terrible situation’.
Ms Mangan blames the failure of successive Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil governments to build any public homes over the past 20 years for what she described as the current ‘housing catastrophe’.
She also said Government policy is forcing small landlords out of the market and worsening an ‘already desperate’ rental crisis.
The industry leader said she made these points during face-to-face meetings with Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien, and that she will continue to lobby the Government until it does ‘something to incentiviste small landlords to stay in the market’.
‘A huge proportion of landlords are selling and last year 57% of our sales were former rental properties being sold.
‘A lot of those landlords were extremely fed up and the majority of them were in a situation where their rents wouldn’t cover their mortgage.
‘The Government’s rent pressure zone legislation came in overnight [in 2016]. Suddenly, landlords couldn’t put up rents even if they’d been static for 20 years.
‘Many of these people were very good landlords, they had tenants in place for a number of years.
‘They were happy with their tenants, they wanted to be fair to their tenants.
‘We sold a property for one landlord whose rent was €500 a month for a townhouse here in the city.
‘I can tell you that no other investors would touch that property because the numbers don’t stack up.’
‘Not everybody can afford to buy, there are thousands of people looking to rent and we need to provide for them.’
According to Ms Mangan, the Government claims it is aware of the problem, but still chooses not to act.
And she warned the failure to do so will exacerbate the chronic accommodation shortage.
‘I don’t understand the legislation which is continuing to come from Government because it’s really set on forcing more small property owners to leave the market.
‘The last Budget was a massive lost opportunity; a few hundred euros tax credit per annum for landlords really doesn’t cut it.
‘The Government is not engaging, they are just scoring off the next political party and not taking into account their voters, many of whom are desperate.’
And she warned that, ‘until that changes, the crisis will continue.’
The estate agent also described the Residential Tenancy Boards (RTB) as ‘a very broken system’.
She noted the RTB index estimated rents in Waterford rose by more than 8% during some months last year. But she said her agency measured increases of just 3%.
‘I don’t know how the RTB are gathering their data, maybe they’re student rentals, but I can only tell you what we’ve seen in our business.’
Ms Mangan’s book, How To Build A Smarter, Faster, Better Estate Agency Business, was published this month and is already number one on the Amazon real estate book charts.
She said the book has advice for anyone starting out in their own business, and not just estate agents.
‘It’s raw and real account of my journey over 26 years in business’ my mistakes, experience and my time with amazing mentors in the UK, Austria and Ireland and what I’ve learnt, and what has worked and what hasn’t.’