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This week saw lots of coverage about 'tumbling' rents in Dublin, on the back of Daft's latest Rental Report. The headlines will leave a lot of Dublin renters wondering if they're living in the same city. It's important to put the extremely modest decreases in context. (1/7)
Rents rocketed for far too long. The average rent of a 2-bed house/flat in our own neighbourhoods of D7 and D9 rose 45% from Q4 2015 to Q4 2020 (per Daft). RPZs, capping rent hikes to 4% annually, were in place for most of that time, pointing to totally ineffective enforcement.
Affordable housing is pitifully scarce across Dublin, particularly for low income renters and those relying on HAP. Daft's only listing within DCC's regular HAP rate of €900 for a couple in Phibsboro & Glasnevin this evening is for totally unsuitable student accommodation.
The stock market-like coverage of Dublin's 'falling' rents and 'low rates of rental inflation' we see in Irish media is indicative of the dominance of speculative finance's role in providing the crucial social function of housing in our city.
Of course, this all has a very real human cost. The number of adults and children in emergency accommodation in Dublin rose by 54% from December 2015 to the end of 2020, with some families trapped in the system for over two years (per @DeptHousingIRL data).
Landlords and government point to short-term snapshots like the latest Daft report as evidence that Dublin's rents are 'stabilising'. That ignores renters' insanely overpriced starting point, and how much landlords have unjustly lined their pockets over the last decade.
Renters don't want crumbs; we want affordable, decent housing and an equitable system of supply that doesn't exploitatively pit the housed against the homeless.
We're organising locally to fight for that change in Phibsboro and Glasnevin - join us to get involved.
We're organising locally to fight for that change in Phibsboro and Glasnevin - join us to get involved.
