Rents increase by almost 9% according to new Daft.ie report
Rents in Galway City have jumped by almost nine per cent within the last year, with the average rent now standing around €1,500 a month.
That’s according to the latest figures from the property website, Daft.ie, which shows rents across the city continuing to rise while listings continue to fall.
This is the second year in a row where there has been an increase in rent due to inflation. At the end of the last quarter in 2021, nationwide rent prices had an average increase of 10.3 per cent, compared to the same quarter in 2020.
In Galway, only 108 homes were available to rent on 1 February 2022, which was down 22 per cent compared to the year before. The average listed rent from Galway City and County is around €1,138 a month, an increase of 123 per cent from the lowest rental price point in the area.
Ronan Lyons, Trinity College Professor and author of the report, said that recent inflation on a national scale and a global scale have caused the increases.
“The strong rebound in economic activity, as public health restrictions relax, has translated into strong demand for rental accommodation.
“Coming at a time of very weak rental supply, this has pushed rents up further, with inflation at its highest rate nationwide since early 2018. The number of live rental ads is at its lowest ever on record, with fewer than 1,400 live ads on February 1st,” he said.
In Galway City and the city suburbs, the cost to rent a single bedroom increased anywhere from 0.2 per cent to 4.8 per cent from July to September (Quarter Three) to October to December (Quarter Four). A double bedroom increased anywhere between 2.6 per cent to 10.3 per cent from Quarter Three to Quarter Four.
Social Democrat Councillor Owen Hanley said, “the government needs a dramatic shift and to intervene in the private market to ensure investments for accommodation.”
“We need to see that there is a steady supply of affordable rent with the security of tenure, with a range of types and sizes of apartments.
“I think what this report shows is that for Galway, rent will continue to get worse as long as we follow the same political agenda that Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have been doing for the last two decades,” he said.
Cllr Hanley said that the increase of rent in Galway and the low amount of available units within the city will create a lower quality of life for many people in the city.
He said that there is “no single demographic that can be blamed for the situation”:
“The consequences that we face from the housing crisis are long term, large scale trends, domestic policy choices, and strategic policy failure.”
For more Galway Pulse stories click here.
