Kildare cost-rental housing lottery opens on Monday

Applications will open on Monday afternoon for the latest cost-rental scheme, which will see housing association Tuath offer homes for rent in Co Kildare at up to 40 per cent below market values.

The 50 homes in Newbridge will be advertised on property website Daft.ie with rents of €1,130 for a two-bed and €1,300 for a three-bed home.

Under the cost-rental system, rents are based on the cost of building, managing and maintaining the homes, and not market rates. Tenants also have long-term security, with leases running to several years available.

The scheme is aimed at workers who earn too much to qualify for social housing supports but who cannot afford to buy or rent on the open market. It is open to households with a net income of up to €53,000 a year.

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[ Cost-rental homes: ‘This makes us really, really happy. We feel secure’ ]

The Newbridge scheme comes in a week in which Tuath is officially opening its first south Dublin cost-rental schemes at Kilcarbery Grange, Clondalkin and Parklands in Citywest.

Tenants have started moving into the apartment complexes in recent weeks and are paying rents of €1,025 for a one-bed apartment and €1,229 for a two-bed at Kilcarbery, and €1,264 for a two-bed apartment and €1,297 for a two-bed duplex in Parklands.

The tenants moving into the 74 apartments in Kilcarbery – the largest cost-rental scheme to date – and the 44 homes in Parklands were chosen by a lottery system earlier this year.

Schemes oversubscribed

Both schemes, which offered rents at more than 30 per cent below market values, were significantly oversubscribed with 573 applications for Kilcarbery and 474 for Parklands.

Prof Paddy Gray, chairman of Tuath Housing, said the schemes offered people the opportunity to rent stable and secure homes.

“These cost-rental housing projects offer moderate income households the choice of a more affordable, long-term and stable form of rental tenure than exists presently, with the added benefit that their rent will not be driven by price changes in the private rental market.”

Including the Newbridge housing, Tuath will provide a further 250 homes in Dublin, Kildare and Louth over the next 12 months, he said.

“These new-build, cost-rental homes are being delivered in areas of need where people want to live in affordable homes which are safe and secure,” he added. “The security of tenure is so important to these people as they embed themselves in their local communities”.