With a vast supply of newly-built apartments for rent on the market, tenants can upgrade regularly if they are prepared to shop around and haggle, writes JASON WALSH

WHETHER IT’S folk memory of tenant farming, living memory of Dublin’s tenements or the promise of long-term security, letting a home has always been second-best: we in Ireland just love to own property.

However, with property prices in free fall there has been a renaissance in renting. For some, the rental market has been transformed from a snakepit to a bed of roses. For others there is little choice.

While the property bubble made buying a home impossible for many, its subsequent bursting has made mortgages hard to come by. Still, falling rents mean tenants are enjoying lower costs and many are renegotiating their leases.

A recent report commissioned by property website Daft.ie noted that rents fell by almost 11 per cent nationwide in 2008. Dublin saw the most significant drop: while rents outside the capital fell 10 per cent, Dublin rents fell by an average of 13.1 per cent.

Over 20,000 rental properties are on the market at any moment in Ireland. “To be fair, it is a renters’ market at the moment,” says John Leahy, who runs the website irishlandlord.com. “This is exacerbated by the presence of the ‘accidental landlord’, people who traded-up to a bigger house but have been unable to sell their old house and so decided to rent it out.”

According to Leahy, the upside for tenants is better accommodation: “People who previously had no choice can pick and choose and get a well-furnished, well-presented home.”

With a vast supply of newly-built apartments on the market, tenants can upgrade regularly, if they are prepared to shop around and haggle.

One such person, Elizabeth Murray, moved to Ireland in October 2008 to take a job as a copywriter having lived in Spain for several years and Jamaica prior to that. She rents a one-bedroom apartment close to the National Concert Hall in Dublin costing €1,200 a month.

“I managed to get the rent down by €300, I was quite pleased with that,” she said.

Despite the rent reduction Murray admits the cost is high: “Dublin is basically double the rent of Spain,” she says. Her previous home was a three-bedroom villa with three bathrooms, a balcony and a swimming pool. It cost €600 a month.

In early January Murray’s life was turned upside-down when a burst pipe in the apartment above her flooded her home.

“My flat was unliveable,” she said. “Thankfully my stuff hadn’t been unpacked yet so it wasn’t damaged.” Murray’s landlord put her up in alternative accommodation for 10 days while the apartment was repaired: “I think I have a very nice landlord,” she says.

Murray’s experience is mirrored by other recent renters. Stephen Coleman, a Dublin-native, returned to Ireland just prior to the credit crunch after four years in Paris and one in New York. Coleman and his girlfriend rent a modern, one-bedroom apartment in Dublin’s Liberties.

Mid-way through his lease, Coleman managed to negotiate a rent reduction, but only by taking extraordinary measures: “We had to actually find another place in the same area and show our landlord how much it cost before we were offered a reduction. He was very reluctant to give it and we didn’t get as much as we had wanted.”

Threatening to leave mid-lease did the trick for Coleman, convincing his landlord that a tenant in situ is a valuable commodity right now.

The loss of a tenant can cost a landlord a couple of month’s rent or more, depending on how quickly they can re-let. Advertising and showing a flat can take time – the days of tenants queuing down the stairs of a building are long gone. Employing a letting agent might speed up the process, but at a cost. Typically letting agents will charge six or 7 per cent of the annual rent to install a new tenant.

It’s not all bad news for landlords, and there is steady demand out there for one and two-bedroom units in good locations, though larger apartments can take longer to let. One Dublin landlord who asked to remain anonymous said that the market is still out there, but that tenants are a lot more discerning these days.

“Tenants are not scarce but they are more choosy and they have a right to be. The curse of the lazy, greedy landlord, and indeed agent, is over, thank God. You should not let a property that you would not live in yourself.”

He also questioned the idea that landlords are raking in the cash: “Remember, most landlords are another cog in the wheel and need to feed at the trough as well – there are very few properties without liens and unless they were bought prior to 2003, they have probably never wiped their faces – but interest rates have had an easing effect.”

Still, even in a depressed, tenant-friendly market, not all landlords are adjusting to the new realities. Jessamyn Fiore, a New York-native, who runs Dublin’s thisisnotashop art gallery, recently moved from a modern apartment in Smithfield to a house close to Phoenix Park.

Fiore and her flatmate moved principally because they had tired of the blankness of modern apartments, seeking the character of an older house.

Fiore was able to find exactly such a place and pay less for it than her previous apartment. “We just moved because we could get a nicer place for cheaper – which we did and it’s lovely,” she said.