Rents are likely to spiral higher as nearly three times more landlords sold their properties than invested in the rental market in the first quarter of this year, new research has found.

A report by Sherry FitzGerald estate agents warned "the continued exodus of landlords and depletion of stock is likely to continue to stoke rental inflation in the near term".

Marian Finnegan, managing director of Sherry FitzGerald, estimated a net loss of 8,000 to 10,000 investment properties across the entire market last year.

Co-author of the report Eoin Lynch said the growing gap is caused by a combination of an increasing number of landlords leaving and a decreasing number of investors coming into the second-hand market. In the first three months of this year, 32.3% of Sherry FitzGerald's second-hand sales were investors selling their properties, while investors accounted for only 13% of purchases in this period - a significant drop from 19% in 2017.

The findings of the Sherry FitzGerald Irish Residential Market Review for Spring 2022 come as property sale and rental prices continue to spiral.

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Data from the Rental Tenancies Board (RTB) and the Central Statistics Office (CSO) also show an increasing number of landlords exiting the rental market.

RTB figures show 614 tenancies were terminated due to the landlord selling the property in the fourth quarter of 2021, the highest number in the two years that the information has been recorded.

Data from the CSO shows that Ireland has been losing an average of 3,000 landlords a year for the past four-and-a-half years, with a considerable acceleration between 2020 and mid-2021 when the number of landlords fell by nearly 7,000 from 163,554 to 156,555.

With each landlord in Ireland owning an average of two properties, this could represent a loss of closer to 14,000 properties last year, although not all properties will leave the rental market if they are sold to other landlords.

Ms Finnegan said: "We need to be gaining 6,000 to 10,000 units a year and we're actually losing them so the gap is widening between need and what is available."

In the year to March, private rental prices increased by 9.2% according to the Consumer Price Index, the highest rate of growth since 2016.

The report warned inflation is likely to remain high for the rest of the year, with the first three months seeing rent increases of 2.1%, the largest rise since 2016.

And according to Daft.ie, house prices rose by 2.4% in the first three months of the year with the average nationwide now €299,093.

A spokesman for the Department of Housing said: "The exiting of smaller landlords from the market is a consequence of multiple factors. We need to retain small landlords to provide much needed accommodation. The Government will support the continued participation of small-scale landlords in the rental market."