Home ownership in Dublin has fallen to the lowest rate since records began in 2000. One in four residents of the capital are now renters and the decline means more people now own their own homes in parts of Germany, which is known as a nation of renters, than in Dublin.
According to unpublished figures compiled by the Central Statistics Office, some 59.9 per cent of people, or six in 10, living in the capital owned their own home during the third quarter of 2016. It’s a significant decline on 2000, when three out of every four residents in the capital owned the home they lived in and, given national trends, is likely to mark a 50-year low in owner-occupier figures in the capital. While CSO data is not compiled for Dublin over this period, nationally ownership figures are at a five-decade low.
Experts see a combination of factors as being behind the trend, including soaring property prices in the run-up to the boom, incomes which have not kept the same pace of growth, as well as the more recent introduction of mortgage lending rules and a tight credit market. The rise of flexible work patterns and contract work has also excluded a certain cohort from the market, who are unable to meet current mortgage requirements.
The figures also show a hefty increase in the numbers renting privately in Dublin, up from just 10 per cent of the population back in 2000, to 25 per cent by the third quarter of 2016. However, this trend may have hit an apex.
Rental market
“There is a distinct possibility that the size of the rental market has peaked,” John McCartney, economist with Savills says, noting the numbers opting to buy rather than rent might rise once more, on the back of initiatives such as the Government’s Help to Buy scheme as well as last year’s loosening of the aforementioned mortgage lending rules.
The decline in home ownership in Dublin mirrors national trends, but the decline is larger in the capital. Peaking at about 80.1 per cent in 1991, a figure which put the Irish as one of the biggest property owners in Europe, the proportion of Irish residents who own their own home has slid significantly since, down to 69.7 per cent by the end of 2016. The last time we saw figures this low was in the late 1960s. The trend means the Irish have become decidedly more continental in opting to rent rather than buy – be it intentional or not.
However, the trend may be brewing up problems for the future, as people reach retirement age still dependent on the rental market.
“Our whole economic and social system is set up around people owning their own property by the age of 65,” says Lorcan Sirr, a lecturer in housing studies at the Dublin Institute of Technology, pointing to structures such as the Fair Deal. “If you want help when you’re 85, it’s much better that you have an asset you can dip into.”
