Free rent incentive offered on luxury Docklands apartments

Potential Dublin tenants are being offered up to six-weeks rent free at a luxury docklands apartment development, as the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is starting to kick in on Dublin’s rental market.

Quayside Quarter at Dublin Landings is a development of 268 apartments on Dublin's North Wall Quay, which was acquired by US property investment company Greystar back in 2019 for €176 million.

It currently has a number of apartments available for rent, with prices ranging from €2,430 for a one-bed apartment to about €3,800 a month for a two-bed, and €5,030 for a three-bed duplex. It’s now offering up to six weeks free rent, for tenants leasing the development’s two-bed apartments. Applying the six-week discount would bring the monthly rent down to about €3,325 a month for the two-bed unit over a year.

The upscale apartments at North Wall Quay come with a dedicated concierge service, landscaped courtyards, a bespoke gym and residents’ lounge. It’s understood that the latest incentive is to compensate tenants for the ongoing construction work at the site.

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Landlords

But Greystar is not the only landlord to offer an incentive to putative tenants, as the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic starts to have an impact on Dublin’s rental market, particularly at the top end.

A two-bed apartment in Gallery Quay, on Dublin’s south docklands for example, is currently being advertised for €2,650 a month, with one-month free, while a two-bed penthouse at Beacon South Quarter in Sandyford, south Dublin is available to rent for €2,300 a month. It is also offering a month’s free rent however, which brings the monthly cost for the year down to €2,108.

Similarly, a penthouse apartment at Richmond Hall in Fairview is using the incentive of one free month of rent to bring the monthly cost on the one-bed down from €1,700 to €1,558 for the first year.

While rental growth has moderated in Dublin, the docklands area, home to thousands of high-end apartments such as those at Dublin Landings, has seen a sharp decline, with rents falling by an average 13 per cent since last March according to Dublin agent Owen Reilly.

“Covid has had a much bigger impact on docklands than any other end of the Dublin market,” he says, adding, “it’s a tenant’s market.”

And the short-term is likely to remain challenged. “We anticipated a bounce back was going to happen in January, but this new lockdown has stopped it in its tracks,” he says.