Students face rental property shortfall

STUDENTS FACE a narrower choice of rental properties than last year, while a post-boom drop in the price paid for student accommodation has now tapered off, a report by daft.ie has found.

As students receive their first-round CAO offers for college places today, those who win places in Dublin colleges may be forced to rent further away from their lecturing halls than last year's intake of students, the property website's report notes. "This is the third summer in a row where there were fewer properties available to rent nationwide at any one time," said the economist Ronan Lyons, author of the daft.ierental report. This is particularly the case in Dublin, which means that some prospective tenants may find that they have to live further out than expected."

Rents nationwide were 0.5 per cent lower in the second quarter of 2012 than they were a year earlier, according to the report, with advertised rents averaging at €809 per month compared to €814 during the same period in 2011.

However, the last 12 months have seen rents rise in some urban areas. Rents in Dublin have increased 2 per cent, while in Cork city they have risen 1.7 per cent. In Galway, rents are up marginally.

In Limerick, costs are down almost 1 per cent, while Waterford city has seen the biggest decline, with a 4.5 per cent fall.

Between the peak year of 2007 and 2010, the rents paid by college students fell by about 25 per cent, but since then they are little changed. Students are still at a significant advantage compared to their boom-time peers, according to Union of Students in Ireland president John Logue. “The rent market is perhaps one of the few aspects of student life that has improved since the recession began,” he said. “In 2007, a student could expect to pay exorbitant rates for sub-standard accommodation, particularly in Dublin. That’s if they could secure accommodation before the college term began. Many students resigned themselves to commuting long distances or took a bed in the cheapest digs available,” he said, adding that the situation had “improved dramatically” since.

The cost of renting a double room in areas close to Trinity College Dublin, the Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin City University and NUI Galway has increased between 1.3 per cent and 2.4 per cent in the last year, daft.iesaid.

A double room in Dublin city centre – close to Trinity and DIT – costs an average of €499 in rent, while the cost near UCD and IT Tallaght is slightly lower at €473. Rents near DCU average at €402.

A double room in Cork city centre costs an average of €340, while in Galway city centre, the average is €338. In Limerick city centre, the average is €288, according to daft.ie, while the lowest average rent included in its survey is €231 for a room near IT Letterkenny.

Average rents on double rooms near ITs in Waterford, Tralee and Dundalk have seen the steepest falls over the past year, with the drops ranging from 4-6 per cent.

A separate survey of more than 1,500 students by myhome.iefound that 40 per cent were concerned about being able to afford college life. Financial worries were more prevalent among those surveyed than other worries such as the stress of exams, not liking their course or not making friends.

Three-quarters of those surveyed by myhome.ie, which is owned by The Irish Times Ltd, said they lived on less than €100 a week, while just under half said they worked part-time.

Faced with an annual student contribution charge of €2,250 – up from €900 since 2007 – students are increasingly turning to credit unions to borrow, according to the Irish League of Credit Unions.