WITH THE NEW homes market still struggling the new fear is that the slowdown is dragging down the rental market.

The problem is not that too many investment properties have been sold, but rather that many builders have decided to muscle-in on the current market situation by dumping their unsold apartments into the rental sector.

As selling agents like Hooke & MacDonald expand their rental divisions to handle the extra supply - and look after their builders' interests - rents are already slipping across the city.

The builders have a lot more supply in the pipeline - more than some agents are prepared to admit - and this too could end up in the rental pool, bringing rents down even further.

Most of the supply will be coming on it outlying areas, so landlords or would-be investors with city centre properties need have no fears as rents, if anything, are still on the way up there, driven mainly by foreign workers who wouldn't dream of renting in Clontarf, Clonsilla or Clonshaugh.

However, builders might have no option but to rent out their units if the buyers are not there. It seems like only yesterday that builders had the luxury of holding onto entire schemes, as long term investments.

Now some of them are dying to offload portfolios in what has become a very uncertain market.