Rents in Dublin have edged above the peaks recorded at the height of the property bubble in 2008. But the areas registering the largest increases in the latest figures may surprise some.
For two-bed properties in the capital, according to figures from daft.ie, it was suburbs such as Dublin 22 (11 per cent), Dublin 13 (11 per cent), Dublin 18 (10.76 per cent) and Dublin 20 (10.67 per cent) where the largest annual increases were registered.
The average cost of renting a home in Dublin is now €1,464 and the table below shows the level of increase by postcode and compares the cost of one, two and three bed properties in the respective areas.
In Dublin, the annual rate of rent inflation, in the year to March 2016, was 8.8 per cent and rents in the capital are now 1.3 per cent higher than their previous peak in early 2008.
The national monthly rent in March was €1,006. It is the first time since May 2008 that the average has exceeded €1,000.
The average rent in Cork is now €1,003 with Galway averaging out at €900 while in Limerick it is €792. Waterford is the cheapest of the main urban centres where the average rent is €687. The average across the rest of the State is €708.
“The severe shortage of rental accommodation has worsened in the last three months, a phenomenon reflected in rapidly rising rents in all parts of the country,” said Ronan Lyons, economist at Trinity College Dublin and author of the Daft report.
“With the formation of a new Government, a top priority must be to address the lack of housing of all kinds, including homes to rent. This involves understanding the costs of construction, which are out of line with average incomes.”
The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) said students were being forced out of college because of the rapidly increasing rent costs. The escalating prices are forcing some students to take leases they cannot afford, sleep on friends’ couches, live in poor quality accommodation and undertake long commutes to college, it said.