Irish Property Market chat II - *read mod note post #1 before posting*

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According to this report, rent affordability is much the same in both Wellington and Auckland, a city of 1.8 million people.

The rental market presents a different picture, with the national rent-to-income ratio sitting at 28 per cent, compared to a long-term average of 26 per cent.

While Auckland and Wellington rental markets have normalised to historical levels, at 25 per cent and 23 per cent respectively, other centres face greater challenges.

So it may have got worse in NZ in historical terms, but from a much lower baseline than Ireland. We are still the problem case.

Just going on what the poster reported. But rent amounts are required to be reported to the RTB. I believe such statistics based on this show rents to be very high in Ireland even compared to our quite high income levels.

What about below, The RTB Rent Index, which RTB say is based on their registration data, and is publicly available?

RTB/ESRI Rent Index data

The quarterly RTB/ESRI Rent Index tracks price developments in the Irish rental market over time. It is based on RTB tenancy registration data that is independently analysed by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).

Is it your belief that rents in Ireland are not particularly high relative to incomes?

When an asterisk is beside something in a document, it doesn't immediately say what it represents next to the asterisk itself. The idea is that you look further down the document, possibly in the footnotes for what the asterisk and other symbols mean. Doing this, we find that it means "Of at least one year in duration."

So the index covers new rentals (presumably less than one year), as well as existing ones of at least one year in duration. Seems fairly clear to me. It covers all rentals on their books, not just new ones.

So there is a rental index in Ireland. You thought it was all just Daft.ie asking prices being hyped by the press.

Can I ask again, is it your belief that rents in Ireland are not particularly high relative to incomes?

The rents per that aren’t actually particularly high when you compare to median salaries and median household incomes. Particularly so given we now give a €2k per tenancy tax credit which works out as a month and a half of rent (and wouldn’t be compared in any comparison). Compared to the national median take home of about €3.1k per month, €1.2k (after tax credit) is a smidge high (about 38%) but pretty much find based on household incomes.

Of course we know this doesn’t tell the whole story. It needs to broken down by unit size, compared to median incomes by age brackets (ie those most in need of rental accommodation) and also geography. There is a Dublin premium of about 10% on salaries but rents are significantly above that.

It also ignores where issues are most acute (those who enter the market or who must move). There is absolutely an issue in Ireland in reporting of rental burdens, this was even acknowledged by Rory Hearne squealing about the new RPZ when he said that 2015 renters were way below market and what could happen to them. That has been remarkably successful at suppressing in situ rents, such that many are on very cheap rents. Many are on extortionate rents too.

The RTB also doesn’t handle direct council provided social tenancies. That removes a large cohort of lower earners and distorts any salary comparisons. Additionally the link between income and stable housing costs is further impacted by older cohorts who may have lower salaries at pensionable ages, but have houses long paid off (this would be a factor in other countries too but I think would be pronounced here).

Added to that, when comparing to other countries we don’t reflect what the tax burden is. Ireland has a highly progressive tax system. In practical terms this can mean someone having €5k higher take home here when earning €30k than €30k in Germany.

A quick review of NZ here shows me that for their median income of around 70k NZD vs. ~€45k here, they take home 79% vs. 82% here. Add to that student loans which we don’t have- that drops it into the low 70% there. We have a low burden.

There are almost certainly unique elements to there that we wouldn’t appreciate looking at from here too in terms of costs, something these comparisons struggle to capture but are significant.

It is easiest to look at this by cohort here, in particular younger groups and compare it to “market”. The discussion lacks general nuance though and there is pretending going on about things like the RPZ- this imo was a disastrous policy by the Government but was well intentioned and is classically left wing in its approach. Yet we have the left often pretending it doesn’t exist (until it’s convenient- see Hearne above).

https://www.thejournal.ie/readers-stories-bidding-on-house-ireland-6952366-Feb2026/?utm_source=thejournal&utm_content=top-stories

Holy s**t

Aside, is asking you to bid against yourself not against the same rules as having a ghost bidder?

Absolutely broken. And PRSA only protects the estate agents.

I can understand when the asking price hasn't been met but that's probably the only situation

wellington is New Zealand's 3rd larget city, behind Auckland and Christchurch. its more comparable to Limerick

This government don't give a f**k about providing housing for the people. Rules to protect tenancies are commonplace in most of the world, why should we be any different?