Newly released data indicates a growing trend of large, corporate landlords dominating Dublin’s private rental market, providing over 20 per cent of private rented accommodation. This was reported by the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) on Thursday, evidencing a rise in the registration of private landlords and number of tenancies over the past year.
The overall number of registered private landlords also saw an escalation from 97,702 at the end of June last year to 103,035 by the end of March this year, marking a 6.5 per cent increase according to the RTB’s recent findings.
Additionally, there has been a consistent growth in the number of private tenancies connected to landlords who own over 100 properties, particularly in the Dublin region. The data released is in stark contrast to the notion of private landlords exiting the market and seems unrelated to a surge in the build-to-rent sector.
On a countrywide scale, the number of tenancies linked to landlords with over 100 tenancies rose from 9.5 per cent at the close of Q2 2023 to 11.17 per cent at the end of Q1 2024. However, the data exhibits a more pronounced increase in Dublin, wherein tenancies related to such large landlords rose from 19.8 per cent at the commencement of the period to 22.6 per cent by the end.
In contrast, outside of Dublin, only a mere 2.56 per cent of tenancies were associated with such landlords by March 2024. With a recent update to its data collection system, the RTB presented its first group of figures, covering the four quarters from Q2 2023.
The Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) has stated that the latest data should not be weighed against previous statistics due to a decline in registered private landlords for the initial part of this year against the same period in 2023. The RTB insisted that such a decrease should not be construed as landlords exiting the industry.
The depreciation is chiefly ascribed to bolstered verification processes and a new policy necessitating landlords to register tenancies annually. This has expunged inactive tenancies and repeated entries from the list, as clarified by the RTB in a press statement along with data release.
The latest figures elucidate a consistent quarter-over-quarter rise in private tenancies registered with the RTB since the second quarter of 2023, surging from 213,177 at the close of June the previous year, culminating in 230,006 at the close of March this year, marking an overall enhancement of 7.9 percent.
Simultaneously, the number of registered private landlords countrywide amplified each quarter, climbing from 96,702, to 98,662, to 101,051, and finally to 103,035.
The RTB indicated that the updated model for data collation has helped in eradicating inactive and redundant tenancies.