RENTS in Limerick City and County continue to rise amid the ongoing cost-of-living and housing crisis mounting throughout the country.
That’s according to the latest statistics from property website Daft.ie, whose recent quarterly Rental Report showed that Limerick City rents have increased by 11.5 per cent year-on-year, while the county saw an even bigger year-on-year increase of 19.2 per cent.
The average rent in the city now stands at €1,738 per month, while the average rent in the county will set renters back €1,393 per month, according to the Daft report.
These figures represent an increase on the first quarter of 2023 of 5.7 per cent in the city, with the county seeing a 4 per cent rise.
Housing stock across Muster remained low in the last quarter, with just 137 properties available to rent in all of Munster up to August 1.
This figure is slightly up on last year, but still “extremely low compared to historical averages”, the report said.
Also up was the cost of renting a room across Munster, with the average price for a room in the province rising by 13 per cent.
The average cost of renting a single room in the city centre was €552, while a double would set renters back €672.
In the suburbs, a single room would cost €507, with a double sitting in the €600 region.
Author of the report, Ronan Lyons, Associate Professor in Economics Trinity College Dublin, said that the numbers of properties available to rent in Limerick is simply too low for a city of its size.
“In both Limerick and Waterford cities, there were just seven homes to rent on August 1st. Technically, in the case of Waterford, that’s an improvement on two on the same date a year ago.”
“But nobody would argue that a single-digit number of homes is anywhere close to adequate for some of Ireland’s principal cities,” he said.
Prof Lyons also said that high buiding costs were making developers reluctant to build outside of Dublin, further adding to issues with supply elsewhere in the country.
“Costs are prohibitively high for standard private rental accommodation to be built anywhere outside of Dublin for the foreseeable future.”
“For that reason, policy has begun to intervene and it is likely that such interventions will be needed for years to come – not least as the fruits of extra supply are still some years of,” he concluded.
Reacting to the figures, Limerick Sinn Féin TD Maurice Quinlivan urged the Government to ban rent increases for the next three years.
“This is totally unaffordable for people on ordinary wages in Limerick. People need a break from sky high rents now. It is clear that the Government has totally lost control of the housing market. Government has failed to deliver a sufficient volume of social and affordable homes.”
“Their controversial policies such as Help to Buy and the Shared Equity Loan have pushed up house prices,” Deputy Quinlivan said.
“Meanwhile, ordinary people in Limerick are left paying the price for the Government’s failures.”
“People in Limerick are trapped paying out of control rents, or living in cramped accommodation while they watch their dream of home ownership continue to slip even further out of reach,” the Limerick TD concluded.
