A Dublin estate agent had over 1,200 applications for one home in recent weeks.
Newstalk reporter Henry McKean spent the day with busy agency Brock Delappe as part of a new report for Newstalk Breakfast this morning.
Agent David Brock told him that people are getting more desperate all the time as the supply of rental properties continues to dwindle.
As figures suggest house price inflation is starting to cool off, there are concerns that many landlords are selling up and leaving the rental market.
As a result, houses that were previously available to rent are being sold to owner-occupiers – leading to a worsening of the rental crisis.
Mr Brock said the “super-high demand” for rentals has become a real challenge.
“We had 1200 applications for a rental so we had to operate a lottery system to make it fairer.” Day In The Life of an estate agents. @NTBreakfast @NewstalkFM this hour. #HousingCrisis pic.twitter.com/0SxEkdAA47
— Henry McKean (@HenryMcKean) June 28, 2022
Asked if he agreed with President Michael d Higgins suggestion that the housing crisis is now a “disaster” he said: “Yeah, absolutely.”
“I heard it described a few months as a humanitarian crisis,” he said. “It is beginning to feel like that.”
“A lot of the places are rent controlled with the rent caps, so the rents are not necessarily crazy high everywhere for every property – but we have a place there and I think we had 1,200 applications.
“The knock-on of that is, while the rent is low, you can only rent it to one person and then you have got 1,999 disappointed people.
“When we’re doing the lettings and it comes to that, we need to operate a lottery system, which is unfair as well. You meet a lot of people who are desperate.”
Exodus
He said the landlord exodus is clear to see.
“Landlords are selling these properties,” he said. “Landlords are not buying these properties; it’s all owner-occupiers, which is great, but that’s another property lost to the rental stock and probably another tenant who has been evicted so the property can be sold.
“So that’s very difficult as well.”
Podcast: “We had 1200 people going for one rental.” Day in the life of a Dublin estate agent https://t.co/TJKNA4q9IH via @NewstalkFM @NTBreakfast #HousingCrisis
— Henry McKean (@HenryMcKean) June 28, 2022
Henry also spoke to estate agent Karl O’Reilly, who described the situation as “pretty awful”.
“To be honest with you, it’s upsetting,” he said.
“It is about how high and can you afford, rather than are you a good tenant that will settle in the community.
“It is a compete split divide now that has gone so high that properties now have priced families and single people completely out of the market.”
Market
The latest Daft report found that house prices in Ireland increased by 3.8% in the second quarter of 2022.
Prices are currently 9.5% higher than they were this time last year and just 16% below the peak of the market during the Celtic Tiger.
Earlier this month CSO property price figures showed a slow-down in house price inflation – although the average price of a home still surged more than 14% in the past 12 months.
You can listen back to Henry’s full report here:
