Sir, – Una Mullally raises the serious issue of affordability of rent (“We are losing teachers who cannot afford to live here”, Opinion & Analysis, July 11th).
A review of daft.ie shows one-bedroom apartments in Dublin range from between €2,140 to €2,500 a month to rent, two-bedroom apartments between €2,445 to €2,900, and three-bedroom apartments from ¤3,600 to ¤3,900.
These apartments, rented through large property management companies, are financial property investments. Investors responded to our generous taxation incentives introduced here to increase our stock of accommodation.
The political and media agenda has focused on increases in rent which only applies to properties which have been rented for a few years.
In response, increases in rent are restricted and monitored by the Private Residential Tenancy Board (PTRB). Tenants have also attained greater rights to continue to remain in a rented property.
This focus on increases in rent combined with extended tenant rights to remain in a property have a number of unintended consequences. Investment funds that are renting property for the first time are setting their rents at a much higher market rate, with the knowledge that rent increases will be somewhat curtailed in the future.
As they are long-term investments established in a favourable tax regime, they can afford to leave some units empty , rather than to reduce rents.
In the meantime, only high-income earners can afford the rent. Others with private homes or apartments to rent (which may include those with family in nursing homes, etc) are reluctant to rent their properties because they are fearful of not being able to terminate a tenancy (it’s an eviction) under new PRTB regulations. So we now see an increase in the number of vacant properties.
It might be timely to give personal tax allowances for rental costs until the housing stock increases.
In the short term, this might assist teachers, etc.
We also need some interim short-term rental contracts to encourage and maximise full use of existing properties.
But we should also consider a citizens’ assembly on housing policies in Ireland.
International private investment in housing was never on any political policy document.
While higher rents may be affordable for those currently in financial and multinational technology companies, as these workers age and have families they will aspire to a home or front door of their own. – Yours, etc,
EVELYN MAHON, FTCD
School of Social Work
and Social Policy,
Trinity College Dublin,
Dublin 2.
Sir, – The policy of rent controls and excessive rental regulation are key drivers in reducing the supply of rental properties to the private rental sector in Ireland as well as anywhere they are applied.
Currently in excess of 600 landlords are leaving the Irish market each quarter and the supply of new rental properties from investment funds is not replacing those lost from smaller landlords exiting. Hence we are dealing with a shrinking number of rental tenancies in the overall rental market as statistics from the Residential Tenancies Board show.
Private landlords are leaving due to three main factors: overburdensome regulation, penal taxation treatment, and vilification of landlords.
Leftists, who have demanded the regulations and are doing the bulk of the vilification, are a major influence on the decisions made by private investors to exit. – Yours, etc,
MARK MOHAN,
Castleknock,
Dublin 15.