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Dublin Housing Shortage Reaches New Crisis Point As Hundreds Queued For One Viewing Session
“This can only be addressed by significantly increased supply.”
A viral short clip outside a rental property in Dublin saw over 150 potential tenants queuing for hours outside the location. It was but a serious depiction of the housing crisis that befell Dublin.
Dublin housing shortage sees a new level in 2022. The viral clip was taken on St. Brendan’s Road.
The demand for rental accommodation has soared to unbelievable levels that Chief Executive of Ireland’s largest private landlord may had filled a new apartment block 30 times over. The new record sees 5.1 million people possibly vying for only 716 homes in Ireland per August 1.
Chief Executive Margaret Sweeney spoke with Reuters regarding a recent situation where they received over 600 requests on 20 new apartments near the city centre of Dublin that were listed last month. It took them no more than a week to fill all 61 units after it finished construction.
“We’re definitely seeing much greater demand, there is a real shortage of good available accommodation. We’ve seen it increasing month-on-month.”
“It’s coming through in the fundamentals, unemployment is even lower than it was pre-COVID, there’s been quite strong FDI (foreign direct investment). We’ve a very young population as well as less emigration than previous decades.”
Dublin real estate agents Brock Delappe explained that they’re forced to run a “lottery” when it comes to choosing who can view the properties because of the surge of applicants.
In this viral clip, Conor Finn who was among those waiting to get a look at the rental property spoke that over 50 people joined the queue after half an hour despite the day getting darker.
One of the agent from real estate firm explained, “The knock-on of that is, while the rent is low, you can only rent it out to one person and then you have got 1,999 disappointed people. When we’re doing the lettings and it comes to that, we need to operate a lottery system, which is unfair as well. You meet a lot of people who are desperate.”
The slowdown of the construction of new homes to stall the spread of Covid-19 resulted in a high demand of employees moving to Dublin for jobs and rising housing prices.
An hour later and I’ve left the queue after no real movement or chance of viewing the house tonight.
— Conor Finn (@TheConorFinn) August 16, 2022
People were still joining the end of queue as I left pic.twitter.com/EBRozByoXk
“A resurgent economy over the last year has accentuated the chronic shortage of rental housing in Ireland,” said Ronan Lyons from Daft.ie. “The shortage of rental accommodation translates directly into higher market rents and this can only be addressed by significantly increased supply.”
The shortage has pushed the government to displace 4,300 Ukrainian refugees as they’re moved to hotels and hospital accommodations.
