Property website Daft.ie figures show that in the three months to August, rents became more expensive in every county in Ireland than they were at the same time last year.
Across the country rents have gone up by over 11% since last year. The national average rent is now €933, compared to €842 a year ago. Dublin rents are now nearly 30% above their lowest point in 2012, and less than 10% below their 2007 peaks.
DAFT's economist Ronan Lyons says that since 2011 there has been a steadily falling number of properties put up for rent, adding that over the course of the first nine months of the year fewer than 27,000 properties were put up for rent in Dublin alone. This compares to over 47,000 in the same nine month period in 2011 - almost a 50% drop. He says the situation is not unique to Dublin and is happening around the rest of the country as well. 40,000 properties were put up for rent in areas outside Dublin in the first nine months of 2014, compared to over 60,000 a couple of years ago. Mr Lyons says that if there is a fall-off in what is coming on to the market, there is also a fall-off in what is available to chose from on any given day. Giving an example of the four commuter counties around Dublin, the economist says that there were fewer than 500 properties available to rent on November 1 compared to over 3,000 a few years ago.
The falling supply is due to the fact that the country has a growing population but not an increasing housing stock, Mr Lyons says. That is leading people to stay in rented accommodation for longer and then they are facing higher costs if they do move elsewhere in the rented market. The economist also says that a shortage of rented accommodation is very damaging to Dublin's competitiveness. He points out that about three quarters of a company's cost base is local wages, which in turn are affected by the cost of housing - either mortgages or rental levels.
Mr Lyons says the Government does not have a good understanding of the rental industry, adding that there are three or more parts of Government that have some connection to the housing market, but there is no Minister for Housing. While there is a a junior minister for housing, the economist says this minister does not have a vote in Cabinet. The Central Bank is trying to regulate lending, the Department of Finance looks at the taxation side and the Department of the Environment looks after the planning side, but the country has no-one to sit on top of the housing issue and so there is no clear government policy on housing, he adds.
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