Ireland’s rental market remains under severe pressure, with the average monthly market rent for a two-bedroom home reaching €2,204 despite a significant slowdown in quarterly rent growth.
The latest Daft.ie rental report shows that almost 2,400 properties were available to rent nationwide on August 1, 5pc more than at the same point last year.
The headline increase, however, conceals a widening divide between Dublin and the rest of the country.
Rental availability in the capital dropped by 18pc over the year, with fewer than 1,150 homes on the market. Outside Dublin, availability rose by 40pc.
Even with the improvement in regional supply, the number of homes available nationwide remains far below pre-pandemic levels. In the years before Covid-19, more than 4,300 rental properties were typically available across Ireland at any one time.
Rent growth eased sharply during the second quarter. Prices increased by 1.4pc between March and June, a substantial fall from the record 4.4pc quarterly increase recorded during the first three months of 2026.
The latest quarterly rise was also marginally below the average increase recorded over the past decade.
Some of the largest annual rent increases were recorded in the regional cities. Galway saw market rents rise by 13pc in the second quarter compared with the same period last year, while Cork recorded a 12pc increase and Limerick rose by 11pc.
Waterford recorded annual growth of 5.5pc. In Dublin, rents were 6.5pc higher than a year earlier in June.
Rental costs also continued to climb strongly outside the main urban centres, with annual increases of between 9pc and 10pc recorded across Leinster, Munster and Connacht-Ulster.
Ronan Lyons, professor of economics at Trinity College Dublin and author of the report, said the figures demonstrate that Ireland’s shortage of rental accommodation has become a nationwide problem.
Rental scarcity is no longer a Dublin problem, or an urban one with a national fringe, but a national one, he said.
Prof Lyons said measures designed to increase the supply of rental properties would need to work across the country instead of concentrating primarily on Dublin.
The latest figures also offer an early indication of the impact of changes to rent controls introduced earlier this year.
According to Prof Lyons, the sharp increase in rents during the first quarter appears to have been an isolated adjustment rather than the beginning of a prolonged period of accelerating prices.
It suggests that the surge in rents in early 2026 was a one-off reset rather than the start of a new trend, he said.
The report found little overall change in the number of homes listed for rent during the past year compared with the previous 12 months.
Although listings have recovered since March, Prof Lyons said the increase was largely a catch-up following earlier delays and did not represent a significant addition to the underlying supply of rental homes.
The figures also show that the difference between Dublin rents and those elsewhere in Ireland has narrowed substantially over recent years.
Dublin rents are now around 25pc higher than before the pandemic. However, rents have increased by approximately 90pc in Connacht-Ulster and 75pc in Munster over the past six years.
The shortage extends to the market for rooms in shared accommodation. The average monthly rent for a double room reached €812 during the second quarter, up 1.5pc over the previous three months and 6.3pc year-on-year.
There were 2,480 rooms advertised for rent across the State on August 1, a 20pc decrease compared with a year earlier.
That was the lowest August availability recorded since 2022, while the number of rooms on offer remained 26pc below the average recorded between 2015 and 2019.
The latest figures indicate that while the exceptional pace of rent increases seen at the beginning of 2026 has moderated, Ireland’s underlying rental shortage remains acute, with supply constraints increasingly affecting communities across the country.
