New analysis by property consultants Savills Ireland shows that Monaghan has the least availability of second-hand homes for sale across Ireland, followed by the Dublin commuter counties of Meath and Kildare. Dublin itself ranks 8^th in the analysis while Limerick is 6^th, Galway 16^th and Cork 19^th. Leitrim has the most availability when buying a house, followed by Roscommon and then Mayo.

The analysis looked at the number of second-hand properties for sale across the 26 counties, adjusting the number of properties for population. The data was collected on the 19^th of August. Across Ireland, there were 24.2 properties for sale per 10,000 population, but there was significant variation within this. Monaghan had the lowest number of properties for sale on an absolute numerical basis (81), but also on a population adjusted basis (12.2 per 10,000), which is almost half the national average.

Meath and Kildare are close at 13.4 and 14.3 respectively, with some improvement to 17.7 for Carlow and 18.0 for Louth. What ties these counties together is that they are all commuter counties to Dublin, suggesting that the higher prices in Dublin are leading to stiff competition for homes for sale within striking distance of the capital.

Greater flexibility in post-pandemic working patterns may also have induced more people to purchase outside of Dublin but within commutable distance to their workplace in the capital. Motivations for this could include cheaper prices as well as a desire to return to, or live closer to, their home county.

The exception to this is Wicklow, which has 28.8 homes for sale, placing it 20^th in the list.  Galway, with 24.5 homes for sale per 10,000 people, is the closest county to the national average, with some of those in the bottom half perhaps having greater availability due to being popular tourism destinations, and therefore having more holiday homes for sale. For example, holiday hotspots such as Leitrim, Mayo, Wexford, Donegal and Kerry are ranked among the most accessible places to buy from an availability point of view.

Of course, many of these homes are likely located in rural locations within these counties, and therefore not serving the demands of the local population where housing pressure is most keenly focused within the larger urban areas. It should also be noted that availability across the country is down significantly, with a recent Daft report noting that just 11,400 homes were for sale in Ireland compared to an average of 24,700 between 2015-2019. 

Table 1: Availability of homes for sale by county – lowest to highest

Rental Market – Home for Rent of Share

The picture shifts significantly when turning to the rental market. For starters, the scarcity of rental properties compared to properties for sale is stark. Across Ireland, there is an average of 5.9 properties for rent or share for every 10,000 people, less than a quarter of the number of homes for sale (24.2).

Narrowing the scope to rental units only puts the figure at 3.5 which, for context, compares with a pre-pandemic average of 9.1 per 10,000 persons according to Daft’s data.  Secondly, while Monaghan is still the worst county when it comes to finding a place to rent or share with just 2.4 rental properties per 10,000 people, Dublin becomes the comparatively less difficult place to find rental accommodation, with at least 15.3 units per 10,000, despite the ongoing challenges in the rental market, with the availability of rental accommodation remaining very low compared to demand.

This is nearly double the next county, Carlow, which has a ratio of 8.4 despite its absolute number of properties available at 54 being staggeringly low. By contrast, Dublin’s availability of 2,290 properties to rent or to share is more than the rest of the country combined. Furthermore, it should be noted that this is a baseline figure as Dublin has a number of recently completed multi-unit developments for rent whereby one advertisement on Daft.ie may represent a number of units which are available. This effect is not seen in the rest of the country, where the number of units available is largely consistent with the number of advertisements.

The analysis demonstrates that while there is a shortage of rental stock across Ireland, the worst areas are those counties are those outside of Dublin.  Mayo has the closest to the national average at 5.6 homes for rent or to share per 10,000 people, but it is still a sobering statistic with just 79 properties available across the whole county of 140,000 people. After Monaghan, Roscommon has the next lowest ratio of 2.5, followed by Donegal at 3.3 and Tipperary at 3.5.

Dublin Rental Market

However, let’s be clear and leave no room for doubt – Dublin is facing a huge shortage of rental stock, a deficit that institutional investors have started to tackle as they have delivered 5,000 units in both 2022 and 2023. What is more, new supply is set to fall by 27% this year and by a further 58% in 2025 due to the challenging interest rate and rent capped investment environment. Therefore, the current increase in relative availability may be short lived if we do not tackle the challenges that are causing new construction to fall in Dublin.

Table 2: Availability of homes for rent or share by county – lowest to highest

John Ring, Director of Research at Savills Ireland, said:

“The starkest finding of this analysis is the shortage of rental stock across the country and it is not clear how this issue is going to be resolved. Apartment development, the traditional channel by which rental stock has been delivered historically, is unviable in most locations outside of Dublin, with no new apartment delivery of scale taking place since the crash. Furthermore, lending for buy-to-let investment is miniscule, while many existing landlords are exiting the market. Lastly, the model of developing housing estates for rental has been effectively banned via prohibitive stamp duty on these transactions. The question therefore arises, what is the plan for delivering private rented stock across the country?”