RTB Rent Register

[Bronte]

@Bronte so it definitely was there on the RTB website at one stage?

A) I took and saved the image on 28th May in my personal files. This is a copy/snip of it in first image. I also spoke to the RTB about it in two different formats. Another poster put it up on here a while back, when I queried it, they copy pasted it on here. Which was why I raised it with the RTB who had no clue about it.

B) Here is a copy paste of 10th June, today, the RTB have deleted the sentence above that I put in yellow highlighter (literally changing their website now constantly)

C) Right now I cannot remember what Emer RTB webinar of 20th May said


RTB are literally making up stuff now ....

 

[Greenbook]

Incredible stuff.

A landlord follows the rule which is on the RTB website on 1 June. They then change the rule 1 July and fine the landlord because he didn't follow the 1 July rule. The landlord has no way of proving that the website was different on 1 June.

Landlords will have to keep screenshots of the parts of the website they are using everytime they file something.

 

[JamieB_]

RTB are literally making up stuff now ....

They have a;lways been making stuff up. They are a tool to be used by the minister in whatever way they see fit and are accountable to nobody. They can lie all they like, produce incorrect guidance, and incorrect reports designed to hide true figures. Now they are manipulating market rent definitions and being used to extract money via fines from landlords in any small way possible.
They are an adversary to landlords, who also have to fund them for the privilege.

There should be an RTB logo in the dictionary beside the word "Corrupt", because that is what this quango is. And yet still you find people making excuses for them. It astonishing really.

 

[Greenbook]

They are an adversary to landlords, who also have to fund them for the privilege.

That is 100% correct.

They are not a neutral regulator. They are Threshold with criminal prosecution powers.

Other posters mentioned the air of hostility towards landlords emanating from the RTB staff at the recent IPOA webinar on rent setting. Being anti-landlord is in the RTB's DNA at this stage.

Another major focus they have these days is getting tenants to report their landlord, but there is nothing similar for landlords to report misbehaving tenants. A situation is developing that the RTB is actually out to get landlords. The ability to issue on the spot fines which the landlord really can't challenge will only increase that.

 

[Bronte]

Can someone help me on how to multi quote @ClubMan please.

 

[Premos]

RTB are literally making up stuff now ....

That's the worrying thing. Someone clearly decided in March, April or May that the comparable rents should be from tenancies which began in the last 3 months. Then, someone decided it was not. Why is the RTB allowed to decide what market rent is. In the same way, 10 rentals needed to be taken into account before setting a rent before, now it's 30. They seem to make the rules as well as making sure they are applied.

 

[JamieB_]

That's the worrying thing. Someone clearly decided in March, April or May that the comparable rents should be from tenancies which began in the last 3 months. Then, someone decided it was not. Why is the RTB allowed to decide what market rent is. In the same way, 10 rentals needed to be taken into account before setting a rent before, now it's 30. They seem to make the rules as well as making sure they are applied.

Market rent cannot be gleaned from stale or controlled rents. There is no way in hell that that tool can be used to calculate market rent.

 

[Greenbook]

That's the worrying thing. Someone clearly decided in March, April or May that the comparable rents should be from tenancies which began in the last 3 months. Then, someone decided it was not. Why is the RTB allowed to decide what market rent is. In the same way, 10 rentals needed to be taken into account before setting a rent before, now it's 30. They seem to make the rules as well as making sure they are applied.

Yes, they are making up the rules themselves, changing them willy-nilly and not informing anyone of the changes. Like 1984 the rule just disappears from the website out of the blue and is replaced by something else.

There is nothing in the legislation about 3 months, or 10 listings from the Register and you must use 3, or 30 listings from the Register and you must use 3. They are just making this stuff up themselves.

Market rent cannot be gleaned from stale or controlled rents. There is no way in hell that that tool can be used to calculate market rent.

Yet the landlord faces criminal prosecution if he doesn't use it and the penalty seems to be increasing to a fine of €75,000 and 12 months imprisonment. Nothing but a trap especially when the RTB also keeps making up the rules, then changing and disappearing them.

 

[patfert1]

I updated my code to scrape the RTB rent register and I ran it across a wide range of eircodes, BERs, 2-5 bedroom houses in Firhouse-Bohernabreena area. Results attached. There is a second tab with the results of the same search in April.
The sheet is sorted by the new Tenancy Start column, most recent first.

A few stats from the results:

• 240 houses found.
• 34 are from March-June, average rent from these is 2497
• Average rent from the other 206 (pre-March) is 2414
• If we count only New Tenancy Registrations during Mar-June, the average rent is 2845
• Quite a few properties found by my query results from April are not appearing in the queries I made today.

A couple of notes on the query tools (some of these mentioned in earlier comments).

• There are now up to 30 rows. However I have seen many queries where less than 30 are returned.
• There are two new columns, Tenancy Start and Application Type
• The Match Score column no longer appears. It would be interesting to speculate why, but see next point.
• I suspect the algorithm is not the same as the one the RTB published in April (https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threads/rtb-rent-register.243258/page-20#post-1991965 @Sr. Tayto ). If it was, I think I would not see queries returning less than 30 in such an area where there are many rental properties, and I should be seeing most or all the properties which I found in April
• I ran the script with 15 Eircodes but after making the queries for the first two, it was not subsequently finding any new properties. This may be due to the fact that the result set is now up to 30, but it could also be due to some change in algorithm, maybe throwing the net wider across the LEA.

 

[patfert1]

To my previous post, I'm open to running the tool on a couple of areas if someone is interested enough to do a deep dive into the results and present some analysis. @Bronte @Greenbook ?

DM me with:

• 3-4 EIRCODEs in the SAME electoral area, but spread out across the LEA. Double check in the RTB query tool that they are all in the same electoral area, otherwise it won't work. If possible, the EIRCODES should be from a few Electoral Divisions within the LEA, but that can be pretty hard to figure out, so not critical.
• House or Apartment?
• range of floor space, e.g. 70...140
• range of bedrooms, e.g. 2...5
• if you don't specify otherwise, I will just set a range of BERs across the spectrum including Exempt

 

[Bronte]

Pat I find it easier now just to run with electoral area. Last week on here when I did rural, Leitrim I think it was, there was less than 10, but when I did a city, it was more then 30. Because it could be less than 10, but with a max of 10. Now there is no max.

I put in same size etc. I’ll play again this week to see what comes up…

 

[Bronte]

The Match Score column no longer appears. It would be interesting to speculate why, but see next point

Well spotted.

BTW the electoral area is a nonsense too. In the cities particularly because if you’re near city centre you’re very close to other electoral areas, my case, and in addition the furthest part of mine is a ridicules comparison.

I also noted that when I picked a large town, a commuter town for a city, that town’s electoral area included small towns nearby. But that’s not comparable in rents.

 

[patfert1]

when I did a city, it was more then 30.

In my experience (many hundreds of automated queries) I have never seen it return more than 30.

 

[Greenbook]

The Match Score column no longer appears. It would be interesting to speculate why, but see next point.

I suspect the algorithm is not the same as the one the RTB published in April (https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threads/rtb-rent-register.243258/page-20#post-1991965 @Sr. Tayto ). If it was, I think I would not see queries returning less than 30 in such an area where there are many rental properties, and I should be seeing most or all the properties which I found in April

All very odd. Does anyone have any ideas as to what is going on?

Likewise the requirement that the 3 comparators be new tenancies within the last 3 months disappearing from the RTB website.

Thanks for all the work you've done here @patfert1

 

[Bronte]

In my experience (many hundreds of automated queries) I have never seen it return more than 30.

Yes I've done it today for inner city Dublin and you're correct, max 30. I must have miscounted last week. Also see this

- That says underlined in red that the results are sorted in date order, by tenancy start date, with exact matches sorted from the most recent tenancy start date

 

[Bronte]

So I've done a search on Dublin inner city, and when I print the results I get 3 pages. for aparment, 1 bed BER C 1 size 40m"

 

[Bronte]

As the above is too small to read, I'll just do 2 screen shots to show how the date order works

So first page, first one is 2026, in green, all the rest are 2025, but they are all C1 and exactly 40m2

 

[Bronte]

So the next part of this is this, and we have 3 from 2026, they are not at the top of the list because for the first one March 2026 it's 41 m2 not 40, for the May one it's because it's C2 not C1, and same story for April 2026, C2 not C1

 

[Bronte]

For Inner city Dublin a one bed C1, 40 m" is renting for 2150. Based on August 25 €2150, €2100 May 2026 & €2000 Feb 2026. 3 'comparables'. But I'm not sure that the highest rent, from August 25 is allowed because of the disappeared 3 month rule ! It's ironic the highest rent is last August.

Also when you play with the BER the results change dramatically. So if you put in an A 1 v an F for example. I tried an A1 - which I think doesn't exist - and up pops the first 10 with BER's from D to G first, then another 20 with no BER.

My own BER is very wrong because it's based on being rated before major renovations ..... it was my agent told me they were manipulating the searches for the notices in order to get the correct results for the 3 comparables.

 

[Greenbook]

Question on the Rent Register/market rent.

A permanent tenancy from a large landlord is valuable and many tenants would pay more for this type of tenancy. Likewise, it significantly restricts the landlord and may make the property completely unsaleable or significantly devalued, so he would be justified in charging a higher rent.

I think that it should be taken into account on the 'what a willing tenant would pay' test for market rent.

However, it is not being factored in by the RTB at all. There is no mention on the website.