Booming property prices and a series of mortgage interest rate hikes by the European Central Bank have seen thousands of llandlords leaving the market, new figures have shown.
The number of landlords leaving the market is double the rate it was last year, with 5,599 landlords calling it quits in the past year, sparking fears of an even greater rental crisis.
It comes at a time when tens of thousands of students are scrambling to secure accommodation, even in advance of the first round of college offers on September 8.
Last night, just over 800 properties were available to rent on property website Daft.ie, as the Government is also seeking to exhaust all avenues to secure homes for more than 40,000 Ukrainian refugees.
Private landlords are now cashing in on strong house price rises, which have almost returned to Celtic Tiger levels, the figures show.
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Landlords are blaming the Government's policy on rent caps as well as preferential tax treatment of cuckoo or investment funds.
New figures show the astonishing increase in landlords fleeing the sector, with 2,913 leaving in the first half of this year, in comparison to 1,728 in the same period last year.
Up to Christmas 2021, another 958 left the market within that three month window and the numbers have been rising steadily since.
This is in addition to a further 15,165 between 2017 and 2020, and equates to a potential loss of some 40,000 properties in the rental market, with landlords owning on average of two properties apiece. It is now leading to growing fears of a rise in homelessness, which is also fast approaching the record levels seen during former Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy's term.
Landlords have also claimed that efforts to sell their rental properties to their local authority have proved fruitless even though many tenants' rent is being paid by the council through HAP schemes.
As the row between landlords and the Government raged last night, Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien put the pressure back on local councils to step in to buy up rental properties and said they would be supported by his department.
A Department of Housing spokesman said: 'Minister O'Brien has also made it very clear to local authorities that where there is a risk of tenants being evicted into homelessness as a result of a landlord selling the home the local authority will be supported by the department to purchase the home should that be appropriate.'
Pat Davitt, of the Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers, said the Government's treatment of cuckoo funds, as well as a raft of new Government regulations are adding to landlords' decisions to leave.
Private landlords' rental income is taxed at their marginal rate, for most is 40%, plus PRSI and USC, so the total can be more than half paid in tax.
However, large landlords are given preferential tax treatment through Real Estate Investment Trusts - known as cuckoo funds.
Investment funds are also not restricted by rent caps imposed by the Government in rent pressure zones across the country, meaning they can charge more rent for their properties than private landlords.
Mr Davitt said: "The situation is getting worse, not better, with a plethora of further regulations this year, that are, we fully expect, contributing to the acceleration the RTB [Residential Tenancies Board] is now seeing.
"There's no extra stock coming to the market that I can see. The main reason why landlords are leaving the market place is because they can't charge market rents for properties, that's the main reason.
"No matter what these guys dress it up as, that is the reason. The Government will not allow one-off investors, the traditional landlord to increase their rent to the market rent.
"The international funds are coming in with properties at the top of the market. But some landlords are not getting the correct rent, the market rent, there's so much legislation and all sorts of things that it's just a nightmare for landlords."
He said non-institutional or private landlords have seen an increasing diminution of their rights over a number of years without any balancing obligations on tenants. Mr Davitt added: "Nowhere is this more evident than in where a tenant receiving HAP (Housing Assistance Payment) stops paying rent.
"It results in the local authority immediately stopping its portion of the payment to the landlord and the landlord is left without any rental income. It can take a substantial period to get the property back with a strong likelihood of never recovering the loss."
In July, the European Central Bank shocked markets with a bigger-than-expected interest rate rise of 0.5%, the first in 11 years, which could mean an extra €1,000 to €1,200 a year depending on the size of the mortgage, if the mortgage holder is on a variable rate.
Sinn Féin's housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin, who obtained the figures, has called on the Housing Minister to call an urgent meeting on the crisis in the rental sector. He said: "On the basis of the figures released to me the number of single people and families being evicted will increase every month for the remainder of this year and into 2023.
"This will lead to a level of homelessness that we previously would have thought impossible."
Homeless charity The Simon Communities of Ireland fears this trend will see the number of people experiencing homelessness continue to increase.
Spokesman Wayne Stanley said: "We know from RTB data that these notices to quit are a consequence of landlords leaving the private rental market.
"This is contributing to the absence of options for those wanting to leave homelessness and driving too many others into homelessness. The homeless crisis in Ireland will only deepen if we don't see further actions taken to make affordable homes available.
"While we have to acknowledge that there are no easy solutions in housing, the Simon Communities of Ireland believes there is potential to bring vacant properties into the housing system, ideally the local authority system.
"With enough ambition this can secure the homes that can see homelessness start to fall again."
Threshold said the figures back up concerns it raised earlier this year. The charity helped 2,821 renters who had received a notice of termination from their landlord, in the first six months of this year, with more than half (55%) were to sell the property.
Threshold chief John Mark McCafferty said: "The private rented sector is facing an onslaught of evictions. Behind the statistics are individuals and families entering homelessness and losing their homes.
"It is imperative that the Government moves quickly to formulate a specific, targeted strategy for evictions to help keep people in their homes and ensures some level of security around this.
"This strategy must focus on how small landlords can be incentivised to remain in the sector. There have been widespread calls for reform of the taxation of rental income.
"If this is what is needed to keep them active in the sector, then the Government must introduce and expedite these changes.
"However, it is imperative that any reform of the tax burden on landlords is strictly linked to increased security of tenure for private renters, including ten-year lease agreements."
