Average annual rent rises 8.6% to €922 per month compared to last year

The cost of renting continues to rise, with rents 8.6% higher nationally compared to this time last year.

The average monthly rent on a property in Ireland now stands at €922, compared with €849 a year ago.

In the capital, the cost of renting a home is slightly higher than the 2007 peak. It costs an average €1,314 per month to rent a property in Dublin, €3 more expensive than the high of nine years ago. It costs €1,454 on average a month to rent a house in Dublin and €1306 for an apartment.

However, other figures in the Residential Tenancies Board’s rent index report for the first quarter of 2016 show that the rate of increase is slowing.

Nationally, rents rose just 0.5% between the January to March period of this year and the last three months of 2015. Furthermore, the cost of renting a house is down 0.3%, whereas the price of renting an apartment is up by 1.8%.

On average, it costs €900 per month to rent a house, which is down €2 compared to the last quarter of 2015. When it comes to apartments, the average rent is €972 a month, compared with €956 in the last three months of 2015.

“The strength of the recovery in Dublin means that rents are now 0.2% higher than their previous peak in quarter 4, 2007,” said the report. “In contrast, the market outside Dublin has experienced more subdued growth and so rental levels remain 13.9% off their peak levels.”

The rental index was compiled by the Economic and Social Research Institute and is based on new tenancies signed in the three-month period, of January 2016 to March 2016.

There are approximately 324,000 tenancies registered with the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB). There were 22,753 new tenancies registered with the board in the first three months of 2016.

Housing Minister Simon Coveney said that more supply is needed in order to have a more stable rental market.

“The solution here is supply. A lot of supply, but we also need to understand and consider rent certainty,” said Mr Coveney yesterday. “I mean, if you look at other cities around Europe, we will see lots of people choosing to rent for a lifetime because they have security into the future about rental accommodation.”

Meanwhile, director of the RTB, Rosalind Carroll, said her agency is hopeful of a fully compliant and regulated rental sector.

“There’s always an element of us as a regulator of trying to ensure compliance, how do we know how many people we’ve registered and if we’re fully compliant or not?” said Ms Carroll. “One of that indicators is the Census, so the last time when we measured against the Census we probably had about 85% compliance.

“Since then, we’ve improved our data sharing with agencies such as the Department of Social Protection and so on, so we would think our compliance is at a much higher rate than it would have been previously since the last Census and we’ll be looking carefully at the new Census data coming out now.”

In an interview with the Irish Examiner on Wednesday, Mr Coveney outlined a national plan to address the housing crisis.

Some options being tabled include a fast-track planning process. Unused parcels of land in Dublin, Cork, and the Midlands are also being looked at as potential development sites for thousands of new homes.