Housing

Ian Guider: We need to incentivise small landlords to stay put, not sell up

The tax treatment of landlords in Ireland is out of kilter: large investment funds are incentivised to remain in the market, smaller landlords to leave

In 2009 there were more than 23,000 listings on Daft; at the beginning of this month, just over 700 rental property listings were offered across the entire country. Picture: NurPhoto/Getty

There’s a stark number in the latest Daft report on the state of the property rental market – and it’s not that average rents for new tenancies have increased more than 12 per cent since last summer to €1,600 nationally, well over double what it was before the 2008 economic crisis.

The most alarming number is that, at the beginning of this month, just over 700 rental property listings were offered across the entire country.