Cork rental prices soar to €2,000

The latest quarterly report from Daft.ie shows that Cork's rental market is facing increasing challenges, with the scarcity of available accommodation identified as the primary factor contributing to rising rents.

Rental prices within the city have surged to nearly €2,000 per month, according to the report, with a significant 10.3% increase over the past year. The average monthly rent for a home in the city now stands at €1,882.

In the county, the average rent is slightly lower at €1,458 per month, representing a jump of 10.2% from the previous year.

The report also found that there were fewer than 100 homes available for rent across Cork, Limerick, Waterford, and Galway cities combined.

According to Ronan Lyons, the author of the Daft report, rents are surging in areas where the supply remains limited. "In all four cities, rents are rising at a double-digit rate compared to a year ago, between 10 and 16%, depending on the city,” he said.

“It's a very different trajectory to Dublin at the moment, and in some ways, the other cities are closer to the rest of the country, where rents are rising more rapidly than they are to Dublin," he said. The average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in Cork city now stands at €1,266. This hugely surpasses the average mortgage payment for the same property, which is €637.

This aligns with the findings from a study by moneysherpa.ie, indicating a widening disparity between homebuyers and renters in Cork. The average renter in the county is now facing an annual cost that is €2,296 higher than a homebuyer who opts for a 90% loan-to-value mortgage on an equivalent property, as revealed by the analysis conducted by the personal finance website.Speaking about the Daft report's findings, Sinn Féin TD for Cork South-Central Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire called for the Government to ban rent increases in the private rental sector as they continue to spiral upwards in the city.

“Renters in Cork city desperately need a break. It is time for Government to take up Sinn Féin's proposal to ban rent increases for three years and to put a full month’s rent back into every private renter’s pocket through a refundable tax credit,” he said.

“Government must also increase and accelerate the delivery of affordable rental and purchase homes. We need at least 8,000 genuinely affordable homes a year across the state to meet current need as outlined in Sinn Féin’s Alternative Housing Budget for 2024,” he added.

People Before Profit TD Mick Barry described the the cost of renting in the city “obscene”.

"Landlords should not be allowed to keep on raising rents when they are at such sky high rates. Any decent government would use their powers to freeze rents but Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are the parties of the landlords and they are choosing to back the people that charge the rent rather than the people that pay it."

Deputy Barry added that the national supply of rental properties is only half what it was in the 2015-19 period and that the country is “crying out” for a major increase in the building of social housing.