The number of landlords registered with the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) increased by more than 5 per cent in the year to the end of September.
Representative groups have long insisted that private landlords are “fleeing the market” because of measures such as rent pressure zones aimed at controlling what they can seek from tenants, but the latest RTB figures show a 5.7 per cent increase to 104,327.
The number of registered private tenancies increased by 8.4 per cent to 236,198 in the same period, while tenancies with approved housing bodies were up by 15.6 per cent to 49,195.
Asked where the additional landlords were coming from, RTB director Rosemary Steen said: “We’re not saying landlords aren’t leaving the sector, we’re saying this is the national position across the country. Some landlords in the Dublin area are reappearing regionally, and moving their investment.”
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Brian Gallwey, senior research officer with the RTB, said: “Currently, our information is just talking about the total number of landlords. There are multiple reasons why we might be seeing more landlords on the RTB register, but an additional piece of research does need to be done to find out where these landlords are coming from.”
Landlords with just one property still account for a significant share of tenancies, at 25.8 per cent, but landlords with more than 100 tenancies now account for 12.5 per cent of all tenancies nationally, up from 10.1 per cent one year ago, RTB research shows.
By the fourth quarter of this year, some 68,905 landlords had one tenancy, while 28,363 had between two and five. A total of 1,537 landlords had 11 to 20 tenancies, 639 had 21 to 50, 121 had 51 to 99 and 109 had more than 100 tenancies.
More than 4,000 notices of termination were served to tenants in the year to September, the RTB said.
Large increases in rent were more likely to be sought outside rent pressure zones, the research showed, with 16.5 per cent of ongoing tenants in such areas experiencing rent increases of 8 per cent or more, compared with 2.8 per cent of tenants in Dublin and 4.8 per cent in other rent pressure zone areas.
The data on the rental sector was shared at an event marking 20 years of the RTB as the regulator of the Irish market.
The standard average rent for new tenancies rose by 4.7 per cent annually to €1,644 while rents for existing tenancies were up by 5.8 per cent to €1,415. New tenancy rents increased by 2.5 per cent in Dublin annually, and 8.9 per cent outside the capital.
Rachel Slaymaker, research officer with the Economic and Social Research Institute, said an important statistic in the study is that 60 per cent of properties tracked saw no increase in rent compared with the previous year.
Asked about noncompliance in rental properties, findings showed there is more happening outside of Dublin, she said, including Limerick and Waterford city in particular.
“There is a bit more of a formalised and regulated sector in Dublin compared to what we see elsewhere,” Ms Slaymaker said.
Some 14,000 letters have been issued to landlords that the RTB believes to be noncompliant.
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