According to the latest figures, rental prices in Donegal have increased by 83% in just over four years.

According to Daft.ie’s rental price report for Q2 2024, the average list rent in the county is currently €1,185, 83% higher than at the time the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in March 2020.

In Donegal, market rents were on average 10.1% higher in the second quarter of 2024 than a year earlier.

The average price for a studio apartment in Donegal is currently €735 per month, for a two-bedroom house €874, for a three-bedroom house €1,021, for a four-bedroom house €1,107 and for a five-bedroom house €1,189.

Nationwide, market rents increased by an average of 2% in the second quarter of 2024. This is the 14th consecutive quarter in which nationwide rents increased and the 45th time in the last 48 quarters.

The average rent on the free market nationwide in the second quarter of the year was 1,922 euros per month, 7.3 percent more than in the previous year and 41 percent higher than before the outbreak of Covid.

As in recent years, supply on the rental market remains extremely tight. As of August 1, there were just over 2,200 apartments available for rent across the country, virtually unchanged from the previous year and only half the average for the years 2015 to 2019, when 4,400 apartments were available for rent.

“Ideally, after more than a decade of rental housing shortages, we would be talking about a gradual spread of the solution rather than a return to the core problem. The solution is a new supply of rental housing in large quantities in every single rental market in the country.”

Commenting on the report, Ronan Lyons, Associate Professor of Economics at Trinity College Dublin and author of the Daft.ie report, said: “Between mid-2022 and mid-2023, there was a slowdown in open market rent inflation, driven by Dublin and in particular by the construction of a significant number of new rental properties in the Dublin area. However, as the market rent inflation rates in the other cities show, this was confined to the capital, where new supply was concentrated.

“This latest report suggests that even in Dublin, improvements in rental housing availability are stalling. Without new rental supply, it is likely that pressure on rents will increase in the future, making affordability even more difficult for those on regular incomes. It remains the duty of policymakers to first develop a thorough understanding of rental supply dynamics and secondly to develop a detailed plan to dramatically increase rental supply in all major rental markets over the coming years.”