THE latest rental report from Daft.ie shows that rents are continuing to rise across the State, with Limerick renters facing significantly higher increases than the national average of 11.7 per cent cent year on year.
In Limerick City the rent rises were significantly higher at 15.5 per cent while in the county it was 12.5 per cent.
Report author Ronan Lyons, an Assistant Professor of Economics at Trinity College Dublin, said the only real solution is to increase the number of homes.
“Perhaps more worryingly, it is not only market rental levels that are increasing but also the inflation rate in market rents, which hit 11.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2022, up from just 1.2 per cent a year earlier and only just below the all-time high of 11.8 per cent experienced in late 2016,” he explained.
“The surge in inflation had been driven by rural areas, which recovered first from the initial shock of Covid-19. But in recent months, urban rents have increased strongly.”
Commenting on the report’s findings, Sinn Féin TD Maurice Quinlivan said that rents are continuing to soar in Limerick and at the same time there are virtually nothing that ordinary working families can afford to rent.
“Clearly rents are sky high, and supply has never been so low,” he told the Limerick Post.
“This increase in Limerick rents is a phenomenal increase on the already overpriced rental properties and is a massive additional cost for workers and families to bear, on top of rapid increases in household bills.
“This latest Daft.ie report makes it clear that there is little or zero affordable rental supply in most parts of the State with Limerick being particularly affected.
“These latest increases means that Munster rents are now 12.4 per cent higher than a year ago, the highest ever annual increase recorded for the province since the start of 2006. Limerick City rents have more than doubled in the last decade with a 132 per cent increase since 2011.”
Deputy Quinlivan went onto say that the ban on local councils buying homes with HAP or RAS tenants in-situ where the landlord is selling up is also forcing families into homelessness.
“The properties are being sold to investment funds, who lease these same properties back to local authorities. This is bizarre and makes no social or economic sense.
“Government’s actions to date are failing miserably and are clearly not working. We need a ban on rent increases on all existing and new tenancies, and we need the government to put money back in renters’ pockets through a refundable tax credit worth a month’s rent.
“Government must also accept that their social and affordable rental targets for 2022 are not sufficient and must be revised. The housing crisis needs to be treated like the Emergency it is. The Government is failing a generation of people.”
