Irish Landords under pressure from falling rents

According to a report in Thursday May 27th 10 edition of The Irish Times Property - residential supplement "Landlords under pressure from falling rents".

The Daft.ie report has described the year on year "collapse" in rental income as "pretty shocking".



According to the report "Still a renter’s market, as supply outpaces demand and that this isn’t going to change so long as supply outpaces demand."

Other recent reports, from the CSO, the Irish Property Investment Report from the Irish Mortgage Brokers and PropertyWeek.ie and the ESRI/PTSB House Price Index also show that residential property prices are grossly overvalued and still falling and that there is still strong outward migration and unemployment. (Using yields as the starting point, the highly technical Irish Property Investment Report suggests that investment properties are currently overvalued by an average of 37% in Dublin, 43% in Cork, and 39% in Galway.)"

Throw in the reluctance of the banks to lend, the bad, bad news about the euro and indebtedness
here and in the eurozone, and the longer term rental market starts to look a little firmer.

25th May 2010 Press Release from Daft.ie

Rents show signs of stabilisation in early 2010

Rents fell by just under half a percent in the first quarter of 2010, according to the latest report published by the property website, Daft.ie. Having risen in January, rents fell back slightly in each of the three following months and the average rent nationwide now stands at just under €760.

The stabilisation in rents is being driven by Dublin and Cork cities, where rents have largely been level since the start of the year. In Dublin city centre, rents actually rose 1.3% between January and March. In Waterford and Galway cities, rents fell slightly (by 0.5% and 1.3% respectively), while in Limerick, rents fell relatively sharply, down over 3% on the previous quarter. Outside the main cities, rents typically fell by 1%, a much smaller rate of decline than during 2009. Overall, rents are now 25% below peak levels seen in early 2008.

Commenting on the report, Ronan Lyons, Economist at Daft.ie, said: "The signs from the rental market so far in 2010 point to a market starting to stabilise. Nonetheless, conditions remain fragile, particularly outside Dublin. The total stock available to rent has been very high since late 2008 and, after falling back in the second half of 2009, has started rising again."

Average rents in the cities, Q1 2010

•Dublin: €952, down 14.3% on last year
•Cork: €785, down 11.8% on last year
•Galway: €773, down 8.0% on last year
•Limerick: €638, down 12.9% on last year
•Waterford: €610, down 11.2% on last year

Other findings

•Rent-a-room income in Dublin is generally 10% below where it was a year ago. A double-room in the city centre now typically costs €525 a month.
•The flow of new properties to rent has slowed somewhat in recent months, down 10% annually, although the total number of properties available to rent - particularly outside the cities - remains very high.
•The most expensive one-bedroom rents are in Dublin 4, where they average €1,000 a month, followed by Dublin 18. The cheapest rents are to be found in Ulster, where the average one-bedroom costs €385 a month.
The full report is available from www.daft.ie/report and includes a commentary by Jill Kerby, Personal Finance Journalist, as well as an analysis of affordability and statistics on residential yields around the country.

Daft.ie is Ireland's largest property website. The latest audited report from ABCe (May 2009) shows traffic of 103 million page impressions (pages of information received) and 1,275,630 unique users per month. Daft.ie is now the number one property website in Ireland across all demographics, from first-time-buyers to commercial property investors.

The Daft.ie Report, now in its 33rd edition, is based on an analysis of the full database of properties posted for advertisement on Daft.ie. This edition of the Rental Report includes an analysis of almost 40,000 properties posted for rent between February and April 2010. This figure represents the bulk of the available properties to let in the country and therefore gives the most accurate and timely reflection of what is happening in the Irish rental market. Figures are calculated from econometric regressions using standard methods.

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