Dublin rents still rising while availability continues to fall

Rents on the Northside are now on average 41% higher than before Covid, according to the latest Rental Report from property website Daft.ie.

The average rent during the second quarter of the year in the North City, North County and West County, which includes Dublin 15, was €2,481.

Despite the introduction of an annual national rent cap and measures aimed at increasing supply, the outlook for renters remains gloomy, and the situation for those looking to buy their own home isn’t much better.

Separate research from Chill Insurance indicates that a single first-time buyer in Dublin would now need to earn at least €103,500 to meet current Central Bank mortgage limits.

In North County average rents now stand at €2,406 while the sales market’s average price settled at €324,644. Year-on-year, rents rose 7.2% and prices climbed 4.2%, leaving rents now 45% above pre?Covid levels, a gap that continues to stretch affordability.

In the North City, the average rent came in at €2,530 alongside an average price of €350,325. Over the year, rents increased 6.4% while prices rose 4.6%, and rents are now 37% higher than before Covid.

The West County, including Dublin 15, recorded an average rent of €2,507 and an average price of €310,587. Rents were up 1.3% year?on?year while prices jumped 9%, with rents now 41% above pre?Covid.

Market rents for the whole of Dublin rose by 2.4% on average in the first quarter of 2025, the largest quarterly rise in over two years. The cost of renting a room in Dublin was about 2.3% higher on average in the second quarter of 2025 than a year earlier.

The Daft report also shows that on August 1, just 1,365 properties were available to rent in Dublin. That figure is about 15% lower than the same date last year and roughly one-quarter below the average number of homes available to rent in the years 2015 to 2019.

Although Dublin rents had been rising at a slower pace than elsewhere in Ireland during recent years, reduced construction has brought rent inflation in the capital closer to that of the rest of the country. Nationally, rents rose by 7.3% year-on-year according to Daft’s report.

Ronan Lyons, Professor in Economics at Trinity College Dublin and the report’s author, highlighted the role of continued housing shortages.

“The upward march of rents continues, as availability shows little sign of improving,” he said. “As has been the case for almost 15 years, the solution to a deficit of rental housing is ensuring more rental housing gets built.

“The average open-market rent nationwide – at a little over €2,000 a month – is twice the rent seen at the Celtic Tiger peak and 50% higher than the level of rents that prevailed just before the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

“As has consistently been the case over the past 15 years, the substantial increases in rents are being driven by extreme scarcity of rental housing, relative to underlying need.

“Since the last report, the Government has moved to relax some of the strictest aspects of Ireland’s rent controls. While this is likely to help boost investment in new rental supply, those changes will not take effect until next year.

“Further, Ireland’s lengthy planning process means that it will be a number of years before any increase in supply is meaningful enough to start addressing the large deficit of rental housing in the country.”

The Chill Insurance research on the cost of buying a home found that a median first-time-buyer in Dublin looking to buy a home for €460,000, with a 90% loan-to-value cap and a maximum loan size of four times gross income as per Central Bank mortgage limits, would need to be earning over €100,000 to secure a home loan.

By comparison, the median Dublin income is €47,873, highlighting a substantial affordability gap.

The research also finds that no county is affordable for a single buyer on the national median salary of €43,221 under these rules. Dublin is the only county where a six-figure income is required to purchase a typical first-time-buyer property.

“The data makes it clear that no county is affordable for a single buyer on the national median salary, and Dublin stands out as the least affordable by far,” said Ian O’Reilly, Head of Personal Lines Sales at Chill. “In most cases, bridging the gap means securing a mortgage exemption, buying at a lower price point or buying with another person.”

According to Chill’s research, Connacht and Ulster are the more affordable areas in which to buy. In counties such as Roscommon, Donegal and Longford, a salary below €51,000 could still be enough to get on the ladder.