Housing crisis ‘unsustainable’ as tenants see €2,200 rent hike a year

Tenants are paying on average €2,200 more per annum to rent a home in Galway over the past year – prompting one housing charity to warn this week that the housing shortage was at ‘crisis point’ and warn that these record rent rises were ‘unsustainable’.

The latest Daft.ie quarterly report for the first three months of 2022 highlighted how average annual rents in Galway City increased by 13.8% and average rents rose by 18.1% in County Galway compared with the same period last year.

The average rent in the city was now €1,585 per month, which is up by €185 per month – or €2,220 extra per year.

And the average rent in the county was now €1,176 per month, which is an extra €181 monthly or €2,172 annually.

Threshold Western Region Services Manager Karina Timothy said the rental market was at crisis point in the West and it was unsustainable.

“It’s a very, very stark situation. It’s getting more critical. This can’t continue, there is only so much money in people’s pocket,” she said.

Galway City and electoral areas of Athenry/Oranmore and Gort/Kinvara are in Rent Pressure Zones (RPZs) where rents are protected by legislation and technically cannot increase by more than 2% annually.

Ms Timothy said it was clear from the report showing double digit rent rises that the zones were “not working”.

Outside of the RPZs, rents in the rest of County Galway are rising even more rapidly, she said.

“There are huge swathes of the Western seaboard where rent zone restrictions don’t apply and so we are seeing in Connacht that rents are going up by crazy prices,” she said.

Read the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now – or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie