Time to end discrimination in rental market

Is renting the new buying? Are we about to dispense with our national obsession with owning our own homes and adopt a more European attitude when it comes to long-term renting?

With stringent new lending requirements introduced by the Central Bank, purchasers are going to find it increasingly difficult to find a 20 per cent deposit in a resurgent property market. First time buyers will have to stump up 10 per cent for properties costing up to €220,000 (and 20 per cent of the balance above that). 

This well-intended measure, designed to avoid a new property bubble, is going to push many families and individuals into the unforgiving world of our dysfunctional rental sector. 

Dubliners will bear the brunt of the pain for the privilege of living in the capital. Understandably, the country’s working majority need to be close to their jobs or at least within reasonable commuting distance.

With the recovery in house prices in Dublin, there has been an exponential rise in rents. A quick search on a leading property website lays bare the grim realities facing renters. Prices can vary from suburb to suburb but it’s difficult to find a decent sized family home for under €1,300 per month, even in the less salubrious parts of the city.

Beyond the Pale and away from urban centres, it’s a different story. I have friends renting an idyllic rural property – a stone-fronted converted mill – for €400 per month. You’d be lucky to get a garden shed for that sort of money in Dublin.

Traditionally, we were always led to believe that it made no sense to rent. The conventional wisdom was: why pay ‘dead money’ when you could own your own home for less?

But we are now in very different times and prospective purchasers face a range of obstacles before they can get a foot on the properly ladder: risk-averse lenders; rising house prices; inadequate supply of new homes; and new Loan to Value (LTV) borrowing restrictions. 

From this crisis we will see the emergence of a new breed of long-term renter. Their children will grow up in rented accommodation without having inherited their parents’ expectations of owning their own property.

In the absence of a properly functioning and regulated rental sector, we have a long way to go before we can enjoy the standards and security afforded to many of our European neighbours.

In Ireland, some landlords have effectively operated a form of apartheid that discriminates against those on rent supplement and casts a slur on people in receipt of social welfare payments. The Government is finally bringing forward equality legislation this year that will outlaw the practice of specifically advertising for tenants who are not in receipt of rent allowance. While this is a welcome step in the right direction, will it go far enough in ending the appalling treatment of social welfare recipients? 

Local authorities also need to ensure that slum landlords are eliminated from the rental market by ramping-up their inspection programmes and taking enforcement action where necessary.

Security of tenure and measures to control the spiralling cost of renting are also areas that will require progressive political thinking if we are to offer future generations a viable, realistic alternative to home ownership.