Rents up 7% on this time last year but pace of growth is slowing

The rate at which rents are climbing has slowed but anyone looking to rent a home will still need to pay over 7 per cent more this month than they would have had to pay last June.

New figures from the Residential Tenancies Board covering the first three months of the year put rent inflation at 0.4 per cent compared with 1.1 per cent in the final quarter of last year.

The latest rent index put the national standardised average monthly rent for new tenancies at €1,060, up €70 over a 12-month period.

The report, which is based on almost 20,000 new and renewed tenancies, showed that in Dublin the average rent was €1,527, falling to €1,104 in the greater Dublin area of Meath, Wicklow and Kildare. New average rents elsewhere were €791.

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The annualised new rent increase nationally was 7.1 per cent, with the rate of increase in Dublin highest, at 7.8 per cent.

"With continuing robust economic and jobs growth through 2017 and in to 2018, significant pressures remain on the private rental market in the first three months of the year," said Residential Tenancies Board director Rosalind Carroll.

She pointed out that on a quarterly basis “we have now seen three consecutive quarters of reduced growth rates both at a national level and in Dublin. We will need to monitor whether this quarterly trend continues during the rest of 2018.”

She suggested that the figures also show the particular pressures that exist in Dublin and the Greater Dublin Area. “The four counties covered by these regional designations are the only ones in the country with new rent averages above the national average of €1,060.”

She said it was worth noting that the rent index “is based on new tenancies registered each quarter and therefore does not reflect what is happening within existing tenancies. Some of the new tenancies will be properties new to the rental market or may have been subject to substantial change and therefore are exempt from the 4 per cent rent restrictions of the rent pressure zones.”