Landlords selling 2026

So do you think estate agents, ESRI, Irelands own housing agency,SCSI are all wrong?

On this last point, I would need to see the figures they are quoting and the methodology applied. Some of the news media reporting I have found to be unreliable.

The RTB figure also illustrates that over the past 10 years, there has been a drop in total rental supply.

You can't use RTB figures going back more than few of years because registration with the RTB was not annual and many landlords did not bother to unregister tenancies when they lapsed and so they continued to pile up.

When they became annualised there was a sharp drop, but this is an artefact of this change not a reduction in actual tenancies. There were also a lot of duplicates that were cleaned up during this time. Really it is only in the last few years that the figures can considered reasonably accurate. The RTB acknowledge this. Q2 of 2023 is considered the starting point.

Now you you might argue at this point that you still don't like the RTB figures even after that point because they don't fit the narrative you are trying to push, but I would argue that you need to provide evidence to support that.

The one argument I have seen put forward is that the number of tenancies is only rising because of unregistered tenancies becoming registered. This argument however fails because of insufficient estimated unregistered tenancies. From the point at which the RTB data is reliable, Q2 2023 to the most recent data, the number of registered tenancies rose by 30,421 (see the chart I have already posted).

Now, the RTB also estimated based on the census of the previous year that unregistered tenancies that should be registered with the RTB stood at 25,248 [source]. Therefore, the number of registered tenancies rose by more than can be accounted for by unregistered tenancies registering even if we assume a) all outstanding tenancies that were eligible to register did so, b) no new eligible unregistered tenancies were created and c) none of the 25,248 were registered in the year prior to Q2 2023. Even with these assumptions we still get a rise in the number of tenancies.

Is there any point for a landlord to "unregister" their property when they sell the property? I somehow doubt there's any fine for not doing so, so I'd say this skews the results.

RTB registrations increased due to a combination of factors. Increased enforcement, changes in legislation including mandatory annual registration, an extension of RPZ rules, along with growth in AHBs. There is still a substantial gap between the census data (330k private rentals) and the RTB (240k registrations). That's 90,000 missing registrations. Meaning almost 30% of the housing stock is still unregistered?

An increase in registrations doesn't show us supply is either increasing or decreasing, it only shows that compliance is increasing, hopefully narrowing the registration gap, which should happen anyway.

Also, bear in mind lags in data. Conveyance is a far longer and more bureaucratic process now. Having to get engineering maps done again etc etc. I was a small landlord, risk to me of non-paying tenants isn't something I could absorb given the change in legislation, so I sold my properties and have taken my capital investments out of Ireland.

Really simple transactions, to institutional buyers (no credit needed). It still took 6-7 months. Previous simple transactions to cash buyers used to take 12 weeks tops.

No increase of supply, just less tax from me for the irish exchequer.

If the RTB figures were true, there would be no rental problem, but we all know there is so make what you want out of them.

This is what counts

Emergency accommodation figures almost triple over 10 years

It depends on what they are saying. Low availability on sites like Daft can be caused by units leaving the rental market that is true, but it can also be caused by increased demand from population growth, which in Ireland is one of the highest in the EU. So despite quite a high rate of building, it is not sufficient to keep up with demand and hence lack of availability. This point has been made a few times on this forum.

You say the figures were not accurate, at some point however we did have 300k+ in stock, we now have less than that and that is fact. "Q2 of 2023 is considered the starting point.", so you are saying we should disregard all of the RTB's previous reporting… Who considers this the starting point. I am looking at the overall picture. Even ask chat gpt and see what that says.

Yes we should regard this as the starting point and disregard earlier figures. I explained already that prior to this, registration with the RTB was not annual. Landlords would register a new tenancy and then when that lapsed, they would not always notify the the RTB. This led to a buildup of bogus tenancies on the register.

@the_syco made this point earlier:

Is there any point for a landlord to "unregister" their property when they sell the property? I somehow doubt there's any fine for not doing so, so I'd say this skews the results. [source]

This is not a problem so much now as landlords must renew tenancies every year. It is unlikely they would do this for tenancies that no longer exist at a cost of €40 a year per tenancy.
The RTB explain this in several places e.g.:

The ‘Profile of the Register’ data series provides more accurate and in-depth information than previously available on the Irish rental sector. This follows improvements made to the RTB’s registration processes between Q4 2021 and Q2 2023.

The changes made to remove duplicate and inactive tenancies include:

A new requirement to renew tenancies annually.

Automatic removal of tenancies which are not renewed from the Register.

Eircode validation for all tenancy addresses.

Landlords verified by PPSN or CRO number.

The system improvements and enhanced validation processes mean that this new data series is not directly comparable to tenancy figures published for periods prior to Q2 2023.

https://rtb.ie/data-insights/rtb-data-hub/profile-of-the-register/private-residential-tenancies-data-set/

The RTB has a set of rules that the tenancy needs to renewed annually. Yet they created a system that doesn't know when a tenacy is expired. That could auto expire them.

They could have written it so tenants could also manage their part. But no.

If there's any problems with the RTBs data (and there is) it's caused by the RTB mismanagement and design of their own system.

They been mismanaging it for a long time. It's unlikely to be accidental.

Surely, our tenancies are indeed increasing, along with the population increase, and the increase of our housing stock being bought by various funds/bodies for rent. An increase of more people going into servitude.

Te

Tenants complain that the LL hasn't registered them. The RTB complains it's not kept up to date. So it's data is wrong. Both can be achieved without a LL.

The only reason it requires a LL is because they are the patsy that funds the whole debacle. So hence the legislation to force them to pay for it.

The build up won't happen if they built it properly this time. They corrected their stats and methodology around stats about 3 times this far. So the odds of them doing right this time are slim.

I hope this clarifies it for you.

Tenants have certainty for 6 years now. Landlords do not have this certainty- the boiler might need replacing, interest rates could increase etc. These uncertainties have to be factored in to the new rents. Rents will have to increase greatly to make buy to let a worthwhile business .

The State is the largest purchaser of new homes. Councils and AHBs.

It isn't private funds that are snapping up the new homes.