Irish rental market shows increasing signs of distress

The Irish rental market has shown increasing signs of distress over the past five years, with stronger demand but weaker supply each year, according to the latest figures from property website daft.ie on Tuesday.

In a rental price report, the largest Irish property website said the average rent nationwide has risen by 52 percent since bottoming out in late 2011.

In Dublin, rents are now an average of 15.4 percent above their previous peak while in Cork and Galway cities, rents are 9.7 percent and 17.8 percent above levels recorded nine years ago, it said.

Outside the cities, the average rent is three percent above its previous peak, it added.

In the first quarter of 2017, rents rose by an average of 13.4 percent in the country, with the average monthly rent reaching 1,131 euros (1,232 U.S. dollars), according to the website.

Daft.ie attributed the rent increase to a chronic shortage of housing throughout the country.

There were fewer than 3,100 properties available to rent nationwide on May 1, down from almost 4,000 three months previously and in line with May 2016, the lowest on record, it said.

"The message from the rental market to policymakers is the same as it has been for over five years now: more supply is needed," Ronan Lyons, economist at the country's prestigious Trinity College Dublin. Endit