Why do Landlords feel entitled to rent increases?

Listen… doesn’t matter how important your jobs may seem, if you dropped dead tomorrow, they’d start recruiting to replace you inside a week.

Upskill and get a new job that pays more. The only thing important about work is how much mo et you can get out of it.

I dislike my current role intensely, but it pays way above the national average & provides me with benefits I’d otherwise have to pay for myself and also affords me a lifestyle I’m very fond of. I’m still adding to my skill base for a move next year.

(full time LL)

In 2012, the Government made a conscious policy decision to curb capital spending on houses and instead introduced HAP as a way to use the private investor/landlord market to provide social housing.

the perception was that there was so much rental stock in the market at the time, which was true in fairness, with about 20-22k listings on daft (it’s 1,650 today).

Property was at its cheapest at the time, and the government brought in a rule of a 7 year CGT exemption in ‘12-‘14, so the market suddenly became attractive to funds and landlords.

however, at no point is it actually the job/requirement of a private landlords to provide public housing. Flooding the market with public tenants, while not restarting the capital spending on public housing, is what’s driving the rent increases by providing too much demand for such little supply.

Reconfirming what we already know, that the rental market is broken on both sides.

just 1,200 listings on daft this morning - I strongly suspect there’s a lot of places that are renting off-market with agents who have a list of pre approved tenants.

I'm expecting another Daft price increase any day now - hard to make money with such low volume of both sales and rentals

That sounds like a possible case of the landlord chancing their arm and rounding up to the next 50 increment - possibly under the assumption that the increase is too small for the RTB to bother chasing.

Although of course it does all add up over the years. Any new tenant should certainly find out how much the previous rent was. Even a tenner a month adds up over time.

It’s very telling how a minority of tenants are very vocal about “greedy landlords” etc. if it bothered them that much, they should have bought their own property to live in.

Many people in this country have been able to buy a home through sacrifice (not going out, no latest games console, old phone, not smoking etc) and did it themselves. No HAP, no RA, no handouts from the state or family.

Just hard work. It’s totally doable, everyone today wants everything immediately and wants others to pay for it.

I recently had a place on HAP that I renewed the lease after 5 or 6 years - the rent calculator said €x,x43 and I submitted it as €x,x50 and it was approved no problem, probably because it’s miles below market rates still. I only rounded up as the odd numbers are more of a pain for annual tax returns.

bear in mind the administration cost of ‘chasing people’ is akin to the cost to the Revenue of a personal tax audit

in decades as a LL I’ve never been audited for my receipts once, nor ever heard of any other LL ever audited either. I’ve everything in order and legit, but I’m doing a bunch of rentals for many years now, so I half expected an audit by now - the bar must be set pretty high

What do I say?

Do what countless others did before you and move to where you can afford a mortgage. You don’t have to live around the corner from your nanny.

Low income workers need to get a better paid job. Educate yourself and improve your circumstances.

It’s not the government’s responsibility to provide you with the lifestyle you want.

They have failed in their building strategy, but they have also failed in policing the existing stock that’s there. A socially provided home should be subject to the needs of the tenant and should only be for a limited tenancy - no more “forever” homes. And as for the refusal of social housing? Screw that. Refuse once and you go back to the bottom of the list.

There is no entitlement to be able to buy a place to love.

I’m in my 50’s, I had to rent for a few years, bought what I could afford, where I could afford. That has not changed.

The one thing that has changed is lending rules, with good reason.

Lack of empathy, I have as much as the generation before me, had for me, which was very little.

Connection to reality, I realise it is difficult to by a house, probably more difficult than when I bought my first apartment, quite a long way from where I worked and would have liked to live. I suppose I disconnect when I hear people saying they should be able to buy what they want, where they want.

I’m alright because I took what I could get when I could get it, not what nor where I wanted. And finally in 2017 I got the house I wanted, where I wanted.