RTB 2020 annual report

sk8board · 20-09-2021 6:32pm #1

https://www.rtb.ie/images/uploads/Comms%20and%20Research/RTB_Annual_Report_2020.pdf

nothing really new in this. If you read previous years as I do you’ll see it’s literally copy/pasted in many places, which is fine btw, as it’s just presenting the data.

1 in 40 landlords (4,000) left the market in 2020 alone, remarkable considering it was difficult/illegal to get vacant possession of a property for so much of last year.

it’s down 10,000 over the 4 years ‘17-20, from 175k to 165k, and from a high of over 200k in 2012 at the height of the property crash.

66% have one rental and 87% have 1 or 2 rentals.

companies/reits control 21% of the tenancies (about 70,000).

the numbers of small accidental LLs are still very much the majority.

the number of tenancies managed by the RTB also dropped, but by far more, 22,000 during the year, suggesting LLs with multiple properties were selling.

DubCount · 20-09-2021 10:47pm

Thanks for posting.

Nothing very new. More landlords leaving. More rents increasing.

I am always surprised at the scale of disputes. Over 5,000 dispute cases raised. Thats over 1.5% of all registered tenancies ending up in some kind of dispute process in the RTB, in just 1 year. Then it takes an average of 20 weeks odd to get to a resolution. Not sure thats working for anyone.

JimmyVik · 21-09-2021 12:48pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117917618#Comment_117917618

How many disputes raised on the strength of a missing fullstop or a date a day out though.

Also anyone ive known who has sold a rental property hasnt bothered to "de-register" from the RTB, so there are probably quite a few that the RTB think are still rented that arent.

Claw Hammer · 21-09-2021 12:59pm

There was quite a churn in the market last year because of Covid with tenants moving to other accommodation or going home to their parents. Add to that restrictions on landlords raising rents and evicting tenants. no surprise that many landlords took the opportunity to sell when they had a vacant property.

Not all small landlords are accidental. Many one or two property landlords view having a rental property as part of their pension planning/ investment strategy. By this stage the number of landlords who became so as a result of negative equity must be quite small, given that most Celtic Tiger negative equity has dissipated through rising values and capital repayments.

Many landlords opted to leave properties vacant during the pandemic rather than accept lower rents and lock themselves into the lower rent going forward. This may be the reason behind the number of tenancies dropping and is a classic case of the law of unintended consequences.

It is very cheap to start a dispute and for a tenant is a win win. They can put their ex landlord through the hoops for retention of a deposit and if they get anything back they are quids in and if they lose it has only cost a few euro.

DubCount · 21-09-2021 1:40pm

I agree with many of the points above. The incidence of complaints is probably higher given "de-registrations" not recorded in the stats (and the number of landlords leaving probably higher also). There are probably also many disputes resolved without access to the RTB. Its still a lot of formal complaints in a market the size of Ireland.

Its also interesting that the biggest number of complaints from tenants was around deposits not returned. I think some kind of independent party to hold deposits might help this. On the landlord side, the biggest cause of action was non-payment of rent. Around 1 in every 200 tenancies had a complaint to the RTB for non-payment of rent in 2020. Its not the majority or anything like it, but its far from unusual, and still the biggest problem in the rental market IMHO.

sk8board · 21-09-2021 5:29pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117919085#Comment_117919085

Good point regarding the de-registrations, I hadn’t thought of that. I imagine they wash out over time anyway. They reported 1,900 notices of termination in 2020, but 4,250 LLs left the market, so a lot of places were already empty presumably.

As an active full time LL, I expected the drop to be higher than 4,000, given what I see and hear from others, but it’s definitely accelerating over the past 4 years and I’d wager 2021 will be higher again.

2017: down 850 LL’s

2018: down 1,800

2019: down 2,500

2020: down 4,250

JimmyVik · 22-09-2021 8:17am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117920661#Comment_117920661

I think you are supposed to register every 4 years, so they should wash out after a rolling 4 years, but I definitely dont know anyone who ever bothered to de-register.

I reckon there are zero de-registers and the ones the RTB are quoting are just the ones who answered their letter after 4 years of not registering a new tenancy.

And we know the RTB arent averse to manipulating results in a way that they dont tell the whole truth for things they have done in the past.

sk8board · 22-09-2021 8:46am

Agreed. As a LL, I feel like I need to decipher the report every year.

they used to have a simple table of the % of LLs with 1,2,3,4,5,100+ properties etc. Now it’s ‘86.7% have one or two’, which hides the sheer scale of those with just one, which is almost exactly 66% of the 165,000 total.

as an investment, having all your rent coming from one tenant in one rental is obviously a huge investment risk.

Also, as you won’t be able to live off that rent, you’ll need other income and therefore are paying, presumably, the top rate of tax on it all.

RTB 2020 annual report

Comments