There was no decline in the private rental stock between 2016 and 2022. In fact it increased in absolute terms and stayed the same as a % of the stock

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NoRegretsCoyote

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From about 2017 onwards there were numerous media reports as well as plenty of anecdotal AAM evidence of private landlords leaving the market.

Well, it looks like that didn't happen.

I looked at the Census 2022 results released ten days ago and grouped households them into three categories: owner occupied, private rental (including rent free), and social rental (local authority or voluntary body).

The number of private rentals increased from 337k to 362k, or 6% from 2016 to 2022. That's only a little below the overall increase in households of 8%. As a share of total households (excluding not stated) the share of private rentals has been pretty much unchanged since 2016 at around 20% 2016, and indeed back to 2011 even.

Households by tenure status (thousands)
2011​
2016​
2022​
Owner occupier
1150​
1148​
1211​
Private rental (inc rent free)
331​
337​
362​
Social rental
144​
160​
183​
Not stated
25​
53​
80​
Total
1649​
1698​
1837​

Households by tenure status (% of total)
2011​
2016​
2022​
Owner occupier
70.8​
69.8​
68.9​
Private rental (including rent free)
20.4​
20.5​
20.6​
Social rental
8.9​
9.7​
10.4​


Anyone with ideas about why this is the case please feel free to comment. I don't have a good explanation myself.

Note: data is here. I excluded the not stated category which went from 25k in 2011 to 80k in 2022. My guess is that non-stated households are more likely to be transient and in the private rental sector, so it's possible that the private rental stock actually increased by even more.
 
The different vested interests have no interest in real statistics except those that confirm their view of the world - hence they can selectively pick numbers that support their case
 
One of the gaps here is the demand statistics. How many of the people living in those houses would have liked to move out but can't afford to do so due to costs and lack of options. Couples living at home with the parents, not out of choice but out of necessity. People living in multiple occupancy shared houses who would love their own place but cant afford it etc.

The "not stated" is a also a big gap and perhaps shows a weakness in the census form. Does it include the homeless, those in shelters, those in hotels because they are homeless or does it include tourists?

Fascinating set of data though, ripe for people to sit down and have a play with it for their own areas etc. One stat that jumped out at me was the 20% or so rise in 10 years on those mortgage free
 
I think the answer is obvious. We know small private landlords have left the market in droves. RTB figures confirm this. That's been balanced by an increase in institutional landlords who rent out hundreds.and thousands of build-to-lets.
So nett decrease in number of landlords, but a few more really large-scale ones.
 
Right Winger said:
So nett decrease in number of landlords, but a few more really large-scale ones.
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Perhaps, this Indo article says the top 10 institutional players control 17k properties. But the increase over 6 years was 45k households so it must be more than that.

thedaddyman said:
Does it include the homeless, those in shelters, those in hotels because they are homeless or does it include tourists?
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No. It's basically households where either a census form wasn't returned, or where the census form was left blank by the householder on this topic or others.
 
Average household occupancy rates, the number of people per household, has dropped from 2.73 in 2011 to 2.60 in 2022.
In 2011 there were 1,994,845 permanent dwelling places in Ireland.
In 2022 that figure was 2,124,590.
That's an increase of 129,745.

The change in average household size consumed 101,171 of those dwellings.
The main underlying factor causing our housing shortage is that our average household size is getting smaller; we need far more homes to house the same number of people.
 
Why do you include 'rent free' in the private rented category? The census categories the former seperately.
 
Mocame said:
Why do you include 'rent free' in the private rented category? The census categories the former seperately.
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I wanted an estimate of households which are living in someone else's house and not social tenants.

Rent-free occupants are not a huge group but not a small one either: 31k households living rent free, nearly 2% of the total.

Census also reports owner-occupied with and without a mortgage separately but I summed them.
 
This is correct and I had a discussion about this with a couple of UCD based housing academics.

Census self reports so there *might* be some lack of clarity in the case of some AHB tenants who might incorrectly have stated they are "private tenants". But yes, it certainly challenges the narrative of "landlords fleeing the market."

IMO I think two unrelated things are happening: 1) smaller landlords are being displaced by larger landlords, the latter have more properties & are involved in build-to-let activities so the overall number of rental properties has grown despite small scale landlords exiting 2) the overall demand for rental housing has grown due to demographic change.

It is definitely correct that households are smaller meaning even the same number of tenants require a greater number of properties, preferably smaller ones which are cheaper to rent.
Exactly the opposite has been happening in terms of many council approving development plans including hostile anti-small unit limits in developments so that there are hard limits on the overall % of 1 bed and studio units in any development. Very few studios get built anyway so mainly this relates to 1 bed units.
Then part V comes along & almost all of these small units are sucked up to cater for huge demand in social housing. 67% of ALL housing list applicants are single people or childless couples who are entitled to 1 bedroom units. Contrary to popular mythology, these households generally are not allocated bigger homes & as a result languish on the waiting list until such a unit becomes available. So there is HUGE pressure on councils to suck in even the small minority of 1 bed units in any development for Part V because the situation is so desperate.
Result then is that existing 1 bed ex-rental sales are not replaced in the PRS, outside of a minority of very expensive build-to-let units (which to be fair, are high luxury, usually 60m2+ with solar/air2air heat pumps etc, but come at high rents).

Interesting thing is that 1 bedroom sales seem very slow compared to 2 bedroom units in same developments - presumably as they are perceived as lower "amenity" (to steal a planning term) compared to 2 beds. Like one large dev near me sells 1 beds for around 200-210k compared to 225-250k for 2 beds in the same buildings. So these often end up vacant for some time while owners try to get a better price. An exacerbating factor might also be that until a couple of years ago there was a minimum deposit on 1 bed units of 20% rather than the normal 10% - some lenders have changed this for high demand Dublin sales but some still insisting on it. So if the buyer is looking at a 1 bed unit costing 200k they need a 40k deposit, which is going to be very difficult for all but a well to do Dublin single earner, who might well decide they are better off simply spending 20-30k more for a 2 bed unit which only requires a 10% or 22.5k-24,5k deposit. Banks expect borrowers to have the full amount upfront for buying costs so add 6-7k to minimum deposit meaning the buyer would need around 46k for a 1 bed compared to around 30k to buy a slightly larger unit in the same development.

Result is that 1 bedroom units are both undervalued AND overvalued at the same time!

Meanwhile for a new landlord to borrow to buy the same 200k unit, they would need a minimum deposit of 35%, or 70k plus legal costs. Hence new mortgage lending for BTL is something around 1%!

I've been arguing for a while that the problem in the private rented sector (PRS) isn't landlords leaving the market, its the almost total lack of both new BTL purchased stock while limited stock of new BTL is priced at a far higher price range unattainable to existing tenants while demand continues to rise from demographic change and inward migration from rural Ireland and abroad. New stock is almost all targeted at the higher end of the market (lower risk) while attrition is concentrated on the higher demand lower priced market.
 
lff12 said:
Why is it surprising?
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You're right - it was utterly predictable! I remember talking to someone senior in housing policy ten years ago. I said (a) Ireland has a very low divorce rate which will only rise; (b) the population is unusually young and getting older and as people age they tend to live alone. Hence demand will be in very much for apartments, and smaller ones at that. I got a completely vacant stare in reply. These people all live in three-bed semis and assume that the rest of the human race wants to live in one too.
 
lff12 said:
Why is it surprising? We've had a huge growth in single person households over the past 30 years, it is of course reflected in PRS demand and social housing lists.
Click to expand...
Because I hadn't thought of it.
 
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