New figures show that new rental rules that came into effect in March appear to have led to a modest rebound in rental listings.
But the analysis from property website Daft.ie said the increase only partially offsets a sharp fall in listings in the months before the rules came into effect.
The number of homes available to rent nationwide stood at 2,461 on April 1, 2026, an increase of about 5% year-on-year.
By contrast, there were fewer than 1,200 homes available to rent on January 1 - a fall of almost 50% year-on-year.
Daft.ie said that while this means that availability is back to levels seen a year ago, availability remains far below pre-pandemic norms.
It noted that between 2015 and 2019, the average number of homes available to rent nationwide in early spring was around 4,366, almost double current levels.
Today's figures also show regional variations with Daft.ie saying that availability in Dublin is actually down slightly year on year. But availability in the four other cities - Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford - increased from 178 homes in April last year to 285 this April - a jump of 60%.
Meanwhile, as the new rules came into force, the number of homes put up for rent increased. During February and March, there were 7,225 listings nationwide, an increase of just over 900 on the same time in 2025.
"This uptick reflects increased market activity and a renewed willingness among landlords to advertise their rental properties. A clear, nationally applied framework gives landlords greater certainty on rent reviews and future income," Daft.ie said.
Ronan Lyons, Professor in Economics at Trinity College Dublin, said that when new rental rules were announced last summer, the Government took the unusual decision to postdate their introduction.
"This gave landlords whose tenants left the option of waiting until new rules came in. Since then, it has been unclear if the fall in numbers of homes being rented reflected landlords waiting or landlords leaving the market," Professor Lyons said.
"These new figures suggest that holding off cannot explain the full decline in rental listings since last summer. The 900 additional listings in February and March, compared to the same two months last year, is less than half of the fall of 2,300 in homes listed for rent between July and January," he said.
"In other words, while the introduction of the new rules has been followed by a rebound in listings, the increase so far has only partially reversed earlier declines. More importantly, overall rental availability remains very low by historical standards," he added.
