Renovate town centres to solve rental issue

Remote workers and significant taxation facing landlords are some of the factors that are leading to a lack of rental properties in the county, Joe Brady from REA Brady (Carrick-on- Shannon) said this week.
“Because broadband is nearly everywhere, we are getting a lot of techies coming down here who can work from home,” he explained
“They have six figure salaries and can pay high rents. The result is that tenants who don't have income, don't have good references and people with pets are not getting the houses.
“If you are a landlord you will give the house to the guy with the big salary who will give you a big deposit. The housing office in the Council are the ones left picking up the pieces and I see the Council coming under more and more pressure,” he warned.
“If you have a couple living in a small apartment in Stoneybatter paying €2,200 living in a shoebox, they can come here and get a three-bedroom house with a garden and reduce their rent significantly and improve their quality of life.”
Mr Brady continued that the cost of accommodation in Leitrim is a supply and demand issue.
“The landlords are going to look for the most they can get and for a lot of years they got paid terribly badly and the bulk of them are giving 50 per cent of the rent to the revenue commissioners.
“The biggest landlord in the country is not a private person, it's the Minister for Finance.
“The reason that landlords have been selling for the last few years, and that has fuelled the craziness of this whole situation, is that it doesn't pay,” he said.
Mr Brady said that with significant increases in rent, becoming a landlord is a more attractive proposition than it had been previous but stressed that more incentives need to be in place.
“The elephant in the room with regard to rental properties and investors keeping and renting properties long-term is taxation.
“We did a survey in 2021 and found that 35 per cent of our sale instructions across the country were from landlords exiting. That's an insane figure,” he remarked.
He said that a lot of properties that were bought by investors during The Boom fell into negative equity.
“So when they finally got back to a situation when they were in positive equity, they said they were getting out. I don't see situations where landlords are successfully buying property to rent in our area.”
He continued, “There are a lot of people in the county who have got notice to exit rental properties and then the property goes on the market and the stock of rental property goes down.
“You still have the same amount of people chasing that stock and that has resulted in rents going up by nearly 100 per cent,” he said.
Responding to reports last month that Leitrim has the lowest average rent in Ireland Mr Brady said: “It doesn't feel like that to the people who saw all the rent increases in the last year. Rents have nearly doubled in a three-year time frame so it doesn't feel like that to the people of Leitrim.
“A three-bedroom apartment that was previously making €450 or €500 is now making €800 and we got as much as €1,100 for a two-bedroom apartment lately.
“In terms of three- bedroom houses, we let one there recently for €1,300 so that doesn't feel cheap.”
He said the fastest way to bring more property on stream, in his view, is to renovate apartments in the towns around Leitrim.
“There is housing in Mohill, Ballinamore and Drumshanbo - there is literally probably 50 residential units in each of those towns just on the main street that could be opened up.”
He added, “It would do these towns the world of good because you'd have an extra 200 people living in the centre of the town and these houses are all within walking distances of shops and schools and transport.”