Ires Reit: New rent rules offers 'opportunities' to invest in new stock

Ires Reit said its growth in earnings was achieved despite the sale of approximately 2% of units in its portfolio

Ires, which has a portfolio valued at €1.23bn, has targeted the sale of 315 units across a three- to five-year period, however, just 57 have been sold to date. Photograph: Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie

The chief executive of the country’s largest private landlord has said the recent changes to rent regulations will bring “liquidity into the market” and new opportunities to invest in residential units which have not been available over the last few years.

Eddie Byrne, chief executive of Irish Residential Properties (Ires) Reit, was speaking after the company published its latest results for the first half of the year. It showed that revenues dipped slightly, falling by 0.4% to €42.6m of which €33.3m was net rental income.

Its earnings after adjusting for property revaluation totalling €14.5m, up from €14.2m during the same period in 2024.

The company generated €6.6m from unit disposals. The company's half-year results also show it achieved sales premiums in excess of 25% this year as part of the firm’s ongoing asset disposal programme.

In June, the Government expanded the rent pressure zone system across the entire country which limits rent increases to 2% a year. However, from March 1 next year, landlords will have the right to reset the rent charged once a tenancy ends.

Mr Byrne said these changes are “positive for our business” particularly the ability to reset rents on properties when someone moves out.

"Today, we turned over about 14% of our portfolio. I expect that to go down, but I think it probably doesn't go below 10%. So what you see is 90% of the residents that we cater for today will stay within the 2% rent cap, and 10% will churn,” he said.

"That will be a slow burn over five to seven years but it is meaningful in the context of our business,” he added.

He said that he believes the changes will help bring more investment into the private rental sector adding that there will be opportunities for the business to invest in new stock.

"We reckon somewhere between 12,000 and 14,000 units in the Dublin market would come for sale in the next two years as institutional owners who are closed-end funds, are forced to sell because they're reaching the end of the maturity,” he said.

“With the change in the building design standards that were announced, we think over the next six months, that will lead to an increase in supply of apartments.” 

"Over the next six months, we think we'll see opportunities to invest in new stock, [which] for us has not been there in the past two years.” 

According to Ires Reit, their average monthly rent increased by 1.5% to €1,823 since June 30, 2024 and by 0.5% since the end of 2024.

The rise was partly driven by the “disposal of underperforming and lower quality assets and organic growth”, the company said, adding that the firm’s average rents are estimated to be 19% below market rent, with occupancy at 99.5%.

Ires, which has a portfolio valued at €1.23bn, has targeted the sale of 315 units across a three- to five-year period, however, just 57 have been sold to date.

On the company’s plans to sell units, Mr Byrne said they are pleased with how the disposal programme is going and they are confident that they will sell a total of 50 units this year.