Cost of renting a single room in Limerick city centre soars by two thirds

THE AVERAGE price of renting a single bedroom in Limerick city centre has gone up by two thirds in the last year, a new report has claimed.

Economist Ronan Lyons has put together a major new survey on the Irish rental market based on information sourced from property website www.daft.ie.

According to the report, somebody wanting to rent a single bedroom in the city centre is now asked to pay on average €625 a month - a year-on-year increase of 66%.

For a double bedroom, that figure stands at €705.

In the suburbs, the average asking price for a single room is €568 - an annual increase of 9%.

And, as for a double room, the average asking price stands at €649.

There are increases in rental prices right across the country, the report states.

Although nationally these appear to not be as high as in previous Daft.ie studies, rents in Limerick have grown the most of all of the Irish cities.

Charges for tenants in general for entire properties are up to an average of €1,907 in the city - a 14% year-on-year increase.

And in rural Limerick, the rise is even steeper - a 14.8% increase to an average of €1,460 per month.

Mr Lyons’s in-depth review shows the rent on a one-bedroom apartment in the city each month is on average €1,196.

For a two-bed house, it is €1,436, and a three bedroom, the average rent is €1,756.

Daft data shows the only place in Limerick where the monthly rent on a property will be under €1,000 is in rural Limerick, where a one-bedroom apartment will set you back €948.

It’s €1,104 a month for a two-bed house, and €1,306 for a three-bedroom house across the county.

The study has also revealed what people would most likely pay in a mortgage on a property as opposed to renting it.

Renting a one-room apartment in the city is, as mentioned earlier, an average of €1,196 a month.

However, if one were to be given a mortgage on the same property, the monthly repayment would drop to just €495.

Rent on a two-bed in the city is on average calculated at €1,436.

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But a mortgage repayment is a comparatively more affordable €690 per month.

Mr Lyons pointed to rents in Dublin increasing by on average just 2.6% year-on-year as evidence on how the property market across the State can follow suit.

He said new supply of homes in the capital is the reason for a drop in the rental demands.

“In 2022, an average of 133 apartments were built per week in Dublin, while in 2023, that rate increased further to 175 per week. Only a small fraction of those apartments were for owner occupiers – an issue for another day – while a larger fraction were for social rental,” said the economist.

Some 20,000 new apartments built in Dublin between 2021 and 2023 - three times the rate of the rest of the country- explains the slowdown of rental inflation there, he added.