Stupid question from amateur landlord

Capital Gains is applicable to rental property as well.

If you're not maximising pension contributions, making payments to an AVC will give you income tax relief as well as a shield from tax until you retire. Maybe foreign property, or commercial property, or shares, or ETFs, or bonds (corporate or government), or precious metals, or art, or crypto currencies or.....

Speak to an independent financial advisor. A small fee could be the best money you ever spend. They will consider your individual circumstances and how much you have to invest and your attitude to risk etc.. I'd doubt continuing as a single property landlord in Ireland will be high on their list of options for you.

Rent amount is registered with RTB

Your hands are tied unfortunately. The only advise I have is to put the word out through your friends and family that you have a place to let and find new tenants through word of mouth, get a personal recommendation. If you advertise, you'll be inundated and it'll take a lot of effort to even shortlist for viewings, a shortlist of people for whom friends and family can vouch for is a much better place to start.

Instead of feeling aggrieved at not being able to extract as much money as possible, like the advert in your post, why not embrace the situation and put the effort into finding a tenant as good as the one you had before? Someone who'll stay as long and save you having to re-advertise it for another five years. I'm currently in the fortunate position of having a good landlord who advertised at a noticeably lower-than-usual rate. He made me jump through hoops to get the place though - work references, previous landlord references (all of which were checked and verified - something which none of my previous landlords have ever taken the time to do). I had to meet him and his wife three times before anything was signed. I've no intentions of leaving any time soon.

I made the mistake of signing a very expensive lease a couple of years ago. It was a very nice place, but I got the hell out of there after a year because I constantly found myself scouring daft.ie for something better value. I'm in my current place almost a year and I haven't even looked at Daft since I moved in.

I don't think so. I rented a house for 1400 euro outside Dublin, yet in a pressure zone. I was registered with RTB. I moved out last August. Landlord put the house for sale through agency for one month, then put it for rent for 1700 euro. So agent must have known what they were doing. Anyway I think it is worth checking because maybe it is a way to do it?

I'm in the same situation. Our long term tenant is leaving and according to other lets in the area, we can only charge €400-€500 less than market value. We need to spend about €5000 to re-let it (I'll have to borrow that) and really cant afford to service that loan. Our current rent is €1300 for a 2 bed house in Tyrellstown.

I understood it needs to be unlet for 2 yrs.

This is what happens when you have an incompetent government meddling in the private rental market, this has been going on for years, the landlord have been putting up rent in RPZ every year because that have too, otherwise, the same thing happens as to what happened the op.

I'm a small landlord that's not in RPZ and I don't increase the rent every year because I don't have to and I only put the rent up when the tenant leaves.

But all this making the landlord the scapegoat for the housing crisis when it's not their fault, it's the crowd that's being in government for the last 10 years.

This. This is the basis that most operate on. It is the status quo in general in this situation. Increase your rent and don't give it a second thought. Maybe appease your conscience and leave it shy of the full hike.

Rent has to be declared when registering the tenancy. The RTB are checking declared rents against previously declared rents and pursuing landlords.

Thinking that no one will know is very naïve.

The rents may be in line with previously registered but Ive heard about new leases recently with extra charges outside of rent and deposit like property tax, admin fees for late payment, charge for professional cleaning and repainting at the end of a fixed term, car space, window cleaning, garden and gutter maintenance, and the boiler service. One place was unfurnished or with a charge for furniture. The rents were below market rates.

All those costs weren't passed on to tenants before but things seem to be changing. Its getting like Ryanair where you're charged for everything...