Rents rose by an average of more than 7 per cent in the second quarter of 2024 compared with the same period last year, according to a report by Daft.ie.
The report also shows market rents rose by an average of 2 per cent compared with the first three months of the year. The move marks the 14th consecutive quarter in which rents nationwide have increased and the 45th time in the last 48 quarters.
The average open-market rent nationwide in the second quarter of the year was €1,922 per month, up 7.3 per cent year-on-year and 41 per cent higher than before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Inflation in market rents remains significantly lower in Dublin than elsewhere in the country. In the capital, rents in the second quarter of the year were 3.5 per cent higher than a year earlier at and average of €2,427, while elsewhere in the State, they were on average 10.6 per cent higher.
Market rents rose particularly sharply in Limerick City (up 21 per cent year-on-year) but Galway (13.3 per cent) and Cork (11.9 per cent) also saw double-digit increases while Waterford, at 9.9 per cent, was just shy of it.
Outside the cities, the rate of increase was similar, on average, between 9.3 per cent in Munster and 10.5 per cent in Connacht-Ulster.
As has consistently been the case in recent years, availability on the rental market remains extremely tight. On August 1st, there were just over 2,200 homes available to rent across the State, effectively unchanged on the same date a year previously and half the 2015-2019 average of 4,400.
What’s happening with Ireland’s housing crisis and where do we go next?
“Ideally, more than a decade into a rental housing shortage, we would be talking about the gradual spread of the solution rather than a return to the core problem,” said Ronan Lyons, associate professor of economics at Trinity College Dublin and author of the report.
“The solution is new supply of market rental homes, in large volumes, in each and every rental market in the country.”
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