A recent report published by property listings website Daft.ie reveals that advertised rents increased by an average of 5.7% in 2024. The report, titled ‘Irish Rental Report Q4 2024’, highlights a continued upward trend, with rents rising in 52 out of the 54 markets analysed across the country. However, despite the ongoing increase, this figure is slightly lower than the 6.8% rise recorded in 2023.
According to Daft.ie, this marks the fourth consecutive year—and the tenth in the past eleven years—where at least 50 of the 54 markets saw rent increases. The report highlights that Ireland has now been in a rental crisis for over a decade, with little indication of it ending anytime soon. While the construction of new rental homes in Dublin surged in 2022 and 2023, temporarily easing rental inflation, that momentum has since declined, with projections indicating a further slowdown in 2025.
As of February 2024, fewer than 2,300 homes were available for rent across the country. In Dublin, only 1,200 rental properties were listed—a figure roughly one-third lower than the 2015–2019 average.
Outside Dublin, the situation was even more bleak, with fewer than 1,100 homes available nationwide on the same day. This figure represents a 60% drop compared to the late 2010s average. In the final quarter of 2024, the average monthly rent across Ireland reached €1,956, marking a 43% increase compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Limerick recorded the highest rent increase, with prices rising by 19% in the past year.
In Dublin, average rents in Q4 2024 stood at €2,481 per month, reflecting a 4% year-on-year increase. The most expensive area was Dublin 2, where a one-bedroom apartment averaged €2,004 per month. In second place was Dublin 4, where a one-bedroom apartment cost an average of €1,902 per month.
Outside Dublin, Galway city was the most expensive location, with one-bedroom apartments renting for an average of €1,413 per month. The report also found that rents for sitting tenants increased by 3.9% in the Dublin region and by 1.2% elsewhere in 2024.
The study points out that Ireland introduced rent controls in 2016, tightening them significantly five years later. These measures were implemented in response to rapid rent increases, but as seen in numerous other cases over the past century, rent controls alone cannot address the fundamental supply shortage that caused rents to rise in the first place.
The report examines rental trends for tenants who remained in their homes (“stayers”) versus those who moved (“movers”) over the past 15 years and found that:
In the first phase (2010–2015), before rent controls, both groups experienced similar rent increases—around 20% for stayers and 30% for movers in the open market. In the second phase (2016–2020), rent controls were introduced—though initially not overly strict—alongside policy measures to boost rental supply. These policies eventually helped stabilise rent inflation in Dublin in the early 2020s.
However, the report highlights a widening gap between movers and stayers.
- Between 2016 and 2020, open-market rents surged by nearly 40%, while rents for existing tenants increased by just 13%.
- In the early 2010s, market rent increases were about 1.5 times higher than those for sitting tenants, but by the late 2010s, they had grown to three times as much.
The findings further emphasise that rent controls have not addressed the core issue of housing supply but have instead shifted more market power away from those reliant on the open rental market. In 2021, these controls were further tightened, making Ireland one of the most heavily regulated rental markets globally.
Since then, rents for new tenants (“movers”) have surged by 47%, while those for existing tenants (“stayers”) have increased by only 7%. Previously, movers faced rental pressures about 1.5 times higher than stayers—now, they experience nearly seven times the strain.
The study warns that the current system is unsustainable and that the OECD has advised moving away from controls that span across tenancies. The study advises that one possible reform is raising the annual rent increase cap to allow landlords to cover maintenance and property improvements. Another approach would be to exempt newly built rental properties from these controls, as seen in other countries. Implementing these measures could help undo some of the negative effects while remaining politically viable. The report also states that with rental prices continuing to climb and a housing shortage estimated between 150,000 and 200,000 units nationwide, urgent action is needed to stabilise the market.
Daft.ie report author Ronan Lyons, associate professor in economics at Trinity College Dublin, said “an acute shortage of rental housing continues to plague the market, driving rents in the open market further up and creating a wedge between those that get the benefit from rent controls and those that do not.
“Rents for movers have increased by almost half since rent controls were tightened in 2021, while rents for ‘stayers’ have risen by just seven percent in the same time,” he added.
