Mayo rents fall while national average rises

Mayo rents fall while national average rises


Five times as many properties available to rent now as there were five years ago

Ciara Moynihan
ciaramoynihan@mayonews.ie

The average national rent rose 2.2 percent during 2012, representing the first annual rise in rents since 2007, according to the latest Daft.ie Rental Report. However, the rise is largely attributable to rent increases in Ireland’s largest cities, and the fact that the number of properties available to rent nationwide is at its lowest since mid-2008. Rents in Co Mayo and throughout Connacht continued to fall.
The average rent nationwide in the final quarter of 2012 was €808, compared to €790 in late 2011. Rental prices in Dublin were up 4.9 percent. In Galway, they were up 2.3 percent, and in Cork they rose up 1.9 percent.
Rents in Connacht fell by 1.9 percent in 2012, compared to a fall of 1.8 percent a year previously. In Mayo, rents were 3.8 percent lower on average in the final quarter of 2012 than a year previously.
The average advertised rent in Co Mayo is now €534 – which represents a drop of 23 percent from the peak in 2007.
Commenting on the report, Ronan Lyons, Economist with Daft.ie, said: “While much of the country is still dealing with a glut of properties from the bubble, it is increasingly evident that there is a shortage of rental properties on the market in urban areas, and in particular Dublin. This may be alleviated temporarily by stock currently held in NAMA coming on to the market, but ultimately Ireland’s major cities will need to prevent future inflation in rents by planning for new construction.”

‘Pull of the cities’
Lyons pointed out that the picture is very different ‘at the other end of the spectrum’, where Ireland’s smaller rental markets exist. “In Connacht and Ulster, there are five times as many properties available to rent now as there were five years ago. With landlords fighting for the attention of prospective tenants, it is not surprising that rents in Connacht-Ulster fell,” he said.
The economist also drew attention to migration to urban centres: “One remarkable feature of Ireland’s bubble was the ability for people to get jobs pretty much anywhere - you could live in a small town and not worry about work. Since the crash, though, it is apparent that Ireland can no longer defy what is the modern economic equivalent of the law of gravity: the pull of cities.”

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