The average listed rent for a property in Mayo is now €847 per month, a 64 per cent increase on the lowest point of the rental market post economic crash and an increase of 15.8 per cent on the same time last year, according to the latest Daft.ie property report.
The report found that the asking rent for a one bedroom apartment in Mayo is now €614 per month (12.7 per cent increase in 12 months ), the asking rent for a two bed house is €703 per month (14.5 per cent increase ), asking rent for a three bed house was €795 per month (13 per cent increase ), while for a four bed home, the asking rent per month in Mayo is €911 per month, a 12 month increase of 16.6 per cent and for a five bed home the asking rent jumped by 16.2 per cent in a year to €1,018.
Rents in Connacht rose 15.1 per cent year-on-year, reflecting a sharp fall in availability - just 102 homes were available to rent on August 1, down over 60 per cent compared to a year ago.
Rents in the second quarter of 2021 were an average of 5.6 per cent higher than the same period in 2020, according to the latest Rental Report by Daft.ie
The average monthly rent stood at €1,477 in the second quarter of 2021, up 2.4 per cent on the first quarter and almost 99% from a low of €742 per month seen in late 2011.
There continues to be significant differences in trends across regions. In Dublin, rents rose for the second consecutive quarter, by 1.4% between March and June, but are just 0.5 per cent above the level seen a year ago.
The other cities, however, have seen much larger increases in rents: in Cork, Galway and Limerick cities, rents are between 9% and 10 per cent higher than a year ago, while in Waterford, they are nearly 12 per cent higher.
Outside the cities, rents rose by 8.6 per cent in Leinster, by 13.7 per cent in Munster and by 14.7 per cent in Connacht-Ulster.
The sharp increases in rents reflect an unprecedented scarcity of rental homes. Nationwide, there were just 2,455 homes available to rent on August 1, an all-time low in a series that extends back to January 2006.
On average over the past fifteen years, there have been nearly 9,400 homes available to rent at any one time, while the 2015-2019 average was almost 3,900.
While the number of homes available to rent in Dublin is down 44 per cent year-on-year, it is close to levels seen in 2019. Outside Dublin, however, there were just 789 homes available to rent, by far the lowest on record – prior to 2020, the lowest level had been just below 1,500.
Commenting on the report, Ronan Lyons, economist at Trinity College Dublin and author of the Daft Report, said: "As the impact of Covid-19 on daily life begins to recede, the underlying issues facing Ireland’s rental sector are re-emerging. It is a sector facing unprecedented shortages, with extraordinarily tight supply: to give just two examples of many, there were just 15 homes available to rent in Waterford, city and county, on August 1 and only eight in all of Offaly.
"Ireland’s rental sector has undergone a lost decade and a half, with almost no new rental homes built. This cannot be solved by trying to regulate prices. It can only be solved by adding significant amounts of new supply – and not only in Dublin. In that regard, policymakers – and citizens – should be wary of anything that limits the ability of foreign savers to build new rental homes here."
