The last of Ireland's accidental landlords? How the rental market is changing hands
The number of buy-to-let mortgages has fallen by around 70% since 2012.
For decades, Ireland's private rental market has been populated by a particular kind of landlord: the person with one or two properties rather than a professional property company with hundreds of homes.
Some inherited a house or apartment and decided to rent it rather than sell it. Some bought a home, moved up the housing ladder and kept their first property, turning it into a rental.
And others made a conscious investment decision. They had savings, an inheritance, a lump sum or other capital and borrowed specifically to buy a property to rent.
However, that model is changing, and a range of data highlights how Ireland's rental network is evolving.
The clearest evidence comes from the Central Bank. Mortgage data shows that in 2012, there were around 150,000 buy-to-let mortgage accounts in Ireland. By the second quarter of this year, there were 44,729. The number has fallen by around 70%.
A falling BTL mortgage count does not necessarily mean a rental property has disappeared, as a landlord can pay off a mortgage and continue renting the property. A property can be sold to another landlord.
But the collapse in the number of BTL accounts is nevertheless a clear indication that the appetite for financing new rental investments through traditional buy-to-let borrowing has fallen dramatically from the levels seen in the years after the financial crisis.
Alongside the collapse in BTL lending, there is another clear trend: the growing importance of larger landlords. Latest figures from the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) show that landlords with four or more tenancies now provide 55.7% of private tenancies, despite accounting for only 11.8% of landlords.
Landlords with 100 or more tenancies account for 15.6% of private tenancies, the highest proportion since the RTB's current series began and the 13th consecutive quarter in which their share has increased.
The geographical difference is particularly striking. In Dublin, landlords with 100 or more tenancies now provide almost 30% of private tenancies. Outside Dublin, the figure is just 3.9%.
And the change is happening as smaller landlords are under increasing pressure to leave. The RTB received 4,031 Notices of Termination in the second quarter this year. Of these, more than half were issued because the landlord intended to sell. That followed an even more dramatic first quarter, when 7,062 notices were received, up 50% year-on-year.
There is also a historical question at the heart of the change. Ireland's large population of small landlords was also an outcome of the Celtic Tiger housing boom.
The mantra at the time was to get on the property ladder, and it resulted in many people buying their first house, moving up the ladder, keeping the old one and renting it out. The financial crash put many such properties in negative equity, making it difficult to be sold on.
Bank of Ireland's analysis of the housing market has estimated that the increased number of properties being sold by landlords could add around 5% to housing-market liquidity during 2026. Some will be bought by first-time buyers and other owner-occupiers. Some will be acquired by other private landlords.
Some may eventually become part of larger portfolios. The evidence of growing concentration among large landlords suggests that the last possibility is becoming increasingly important.
The Irish Property Owners' Association (IPOA) has been particularly vocal about the trend. Earlier this month, IPOA chair Mary Conway said the RTB figures showed a rental market increasingly dominated by larger landlords while the traditional small landlord was losing ground.
The organisation highlighted the fall in the number of one-tenancy landlords and warned that their disappearance could reduce choice for tenants, particularly in rural and regional Ireland. That regional question is an important one.
Institutional investment tends to concentrate in markets where large portfolios can be assembled and managed efficiently. Dublin is already the clearest example, with nearly three in 10 private tenancies now associated with landlords with 100 or more tenancies.
Outside the capital, the equivalent figure is less than 4%. It leaves open an important question about smaller towns and rural areas. If a local landlord with one or two houses sells up, is there another landlord ready to take their place or does the property simply leave the rental market altogether?
Ms Conway said the answer to the question is clear. "Small landlords provide homes in towns, villages and communities throughout Ireland. If they continue to disappear from the market, there will inevitably be less choice and less flexibility for tenants," she said.
“The debate is always too Dublin-focused and that we forget what's going down down the country because if a landlord leaves down the country, they're not going to be replaced by another one.”
Even the institutional market is not simply about buying everything that small landlords sell. Large landlords are themselves constantly buying, selling, refinancing and recycling assets.
I-RES, Ireland's largest listed residential landlord, illustrates how the institutional model works. At the end of June it owned 3,611 homes valued at €1.28bn, with occupancy of 99.4% and around 85% of its drawn debt fixed.
But it is not simply accumulating. I-RES sold 41 individual apartments last year and 18 more in the first half of this year, at prices about 30% above book value, with a further 20 lined up for sale. The proceeds are being recycled into new stock.
Alongside the changing economics are the new regulations, which have substantially changed the obligations of being a landlord.
From March, new tenancy rules differentiate between small landlords with one to three tenancies and larger landlords with four or more, including different rules around ending tenancies.
For a small landlord who never intended to build a property business, the calculation may look very different from the one made 15 or 20 years ago. The result could be the gradual disappearance of a particular kind of Irish landlord.
The emerging replacement may be a rental market with fewer individual owners and more concentrated ownership.
The RTB data already show that shift in progress. Large landlords are taking a greater share of private tenancies while the BTL mortgage stock continues to shrink.
With so many landlords exiting the market, the question remains: who is buying up these properties? CSO data offers at least a partial answer.
Of the 39,566 homes sold by households last year, just 3,256 went to companies, institutions or State bodies, down 22% on 2024 and the lowest in any year since at least 2019. The vast majority were bought by other households.
Nor were the main non-household buyers investment funds. Local authorities, approved housing bodies and other public bodies were net buyers of 6,607 homes.
Institutional money is increasingly flowing into new apartments rather than second-hand houses.
While the overall number of rental properties is increasing, the landscape has changed from a fragmented, highly leveraged private rental market towards one with a much greater concentration of professional ownership.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
