Rent increases in Ireland since 2010 third highest in EU

The Republic has had the third-highest rent increases in the European Union since 2010, according to newly-released figures.

Rents in the Republic were 76.7 per cent higher in the first quarter of 2022 than they had been in the first quarter of 2010. The increase was, on average, 4½ times greater in the State than the average across other EU countries.

Only Estonia (177.5 per cent) and Lithuania (126.7 per cent) have had higher rates of rent increases in the same time period, according to Eurostat.

In 19 out of 27 EU countries house prices increased more than rents between 2010 and 2022. Overall, the average increase in house prices was 44.7 per cent, compared with 16.9 per cent for rents.

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In Ireland the opposite has been the case, with rents rising much more quickly than house prices.

Irish house prices have been on something of a rollercoaster since the depths of the economic recession in 2010 when they fell by 12.2 per cent. That was followed by 17.8 per cent and 14.4 per cent decreases in 2012 and 2013 before a rebound in 2014 when they increased 15.7 per cent.

House prices increased more than inflation every year between 2016 and 2021 in almost all of the 27 EU countries.

In 2021, the highest differences between annual changes in house prices and the annual inflation rate were recorded in Czechia (16.4 per cent), Luxembourg and the Netherlands (11.2 per cent), Lithuania (11 per cent) and Estonia (10.2 per cent).

House prices in Ireland were largely static just before and during the pandemic but started to rise quickly again in its aftermath.

The increase year on year to the first quarter of 2022 was 15 per cent, compared with an average of 10.5 per cent year on year across the EU. The rate of increase in Ireland appears to be moderating in the most recent period covered by the report, with rises of 5.1 per cent in the third quarter of 2021, 4.2 per cent in the final quarter and 2.6 per cent in the first quarter of this year.