Barney Kiernan has been working in real estate in Castlebar for 30 years but has said that Mayo’s current rental market was “bizarre and manic”.
Prices have rocketed by almost 25 per cent for Mayo renters, making it the highest year-on-year increase in the country and an average of €1,222.
The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment was recorded at €799, an increase of 17.5 per cent, while three-bed houses recorded a 23.7 per cent rise (€1,110), according to the most recent figures from Daft.ie.
Mr Kiernan, property director of Castlebar Properties, said that although the situation is dire in Mayo, it is a “microcosm of the market in the whole country”.
[ Ireland’s average weekly rent increased by 37% between 2016 and 2022, Census data shows ]
[ Younger people lose out in generation game of Irish housing market ]
“I’ve been working 30 years in this business, and you’d see the occasional landlord sell off a property and a natural replacement would spring up, allowing new renters to come into the market. But you don’t see that any more. I have never seen the rental market as dysfunctional as it is now to be honest,” he said.
Mr Kiernan said he believed there were three keys reasons which he attributes for Mayo’s rental crisis, stating that the combination of Celtic Tiger investors, rising house prices and Rent-to-buy (RTB) regulations are a “perfect storm” for a rental market meltdown.
I’ve spoken to doctors who came as students to Castlebar maybe five or six years ago who were paying €180 for a room per month, but now I’ve moved up from Galway and I’m paying €400 a month
For Tiernan Surlis, final year medical student in NUIG, on placement in Mayo University Hospital, he said that housing for students is “a bit of a lottery”.
“I’m a final year medical student in NUIG and