Limerick sees highest rental inflation nationwide at almost 15%

LIMERICK has recorded the sharpest rental inflation in the country, with average city rents up nearly 15% to €2,422 in the past year.

In the rest of Limerick, market rents were on average 7.5% higher in the second quarter of 2025 than a year previously. The average listed rent is now €1682, up 81% from the level prevailing when the Covid19 pandemic occurred.

Nationally, market rents rose by an average of 1.6% in the second quarter of 2025, according to the latest Rental Report by Daft.ie, the eighteenth consecutive quarter of rising rents. The average open-market rent nationwide between April and June was €2,055 per month, up from a low of just €765 in 2011 and 51% higher than before the outbreak of Covid19.

There remains significant pressure in the rental markets of Ireland’s other cities. In Galway city, rents were up 8.5% year on year, while in Cork city, they increased by 11.8% in the same period. Inflation was even greater in Waterford city (up 12.5%) and, as has consistently been the case in recent quarters, Limerick city saw the highest inflation, at 14.9%. 

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Outside the five major cities, rents rose by an average of 6.2% over the last year. There were almost 2,300 homes available to rent nationwide on August 1. This is down 14% year-on-year and close to half the 2015-2019 average for availability of homes to rent.

Commenting on the report, its author Ronan Lyons, Professor in Economics at Trinity College Dublin, said: “The average open-market rent nationwide - at a little over €2,000 a month - is twice the rent seen at the Celtic Tiger peak and 50% higher than the level of rents that prevailed just before the Covid19 pandemic hit. As has consistently been the case over the past fifteen years, the substantial increases in rents are being driven by extreme scarcity of rental housing, relative to underlying need.

“Since the last report, the government has moved to relax some of the strictest aspects of Ireland’s rent controls. While this is likely to help boost investment in new rental supply, those changes will not take effect until next year. Further, Ireland’s lengthy planning process means that it will be a number of years before any increase in supply is meaningful enough to start addressing the large deficit of rental housing in the country.”

The full report is available from www.daft.ie/report and includes a commentary by Mr Lyons as well as figures on rents paid by sitting tenants, and analysis of affordability and residential yields around the country.