The private rental sector is like a game of musical chairs

The recent Residential Tenancies Board’s Rental Sector Survey shows that the two big issues in the sector continue to affect tenants: affordability and insecurity, writes Michael Byrne

Recent reforms in the private rental sector have improved the housing experiences of many tenants.

The private rental sector has been subject to an incredible range of new policy initiatives in recent years. 

Before 2016, we had one of the most unregulated rental sectors in Europe. But since those days, there has been a never-ending stream of policy reforms, including four, increasingly stringent, forms of rent control, much more active enforcement and some, albeit modest, strengthening of security of tenure. But to a large extent this policy change has happened in a vacuum and it has been hard to say what, if anything, is working.