Buying a property for the purposes of renting

No no no no no no no no no no!!!

You'd be on a hiding to nothing. Don't do it. Being a landlord isn't for the faint hearted. If it was that easy small landlords wouldn't be leaving the market with haste.

Tax and maintenance and upkeep don't seem to be on your radar. It is far from as simple as tenants "paying your mortgage". No guarantee your tenants would pay for starters.

You can't afford a mortgage for your family but want to buy an investment! No no no.... You can make a proper big mistake. Taxation, non paying tenants, maintenance... You could get in big debt very fast.

Landlords are choosing to leave properties empty... Do you think they are stupid!

Focus on saving money for a property for your family. That is where you should focus on.

I'm a big advocate of the value of investing in the lower-end of the Dublin property market.

But borrowing to do so with a 30k deposit? Nooooooooo.

You would be better off buying bitcoin it would be less risky than becoming a landlord.

There is a reason 25,000 landlords have left. Why 40% of all houses sold this year are by landlords and why 20% have indicated they are very likely to sell soon.

When Asked why landlords are selling up – % of responses

No longer wish to be a landlord – 48

Taxation is too high on rental income – 45

Being a landlord is not profitable – 43

The regulatory environment – 36

I am retiring and my properties are my pension – 26

The property is no longer in negative equity – 24

Too much time needed in managing properties – 22

That adds up to 244% though. Not 100%. Just being pedantic.

To answer your question in your first line:

Bad idea. Very, very bad idea.

The paperwork is a joke too. It’s now necessary to re-register tenants on an annual basis. I’ve had the same tenants for the last eleven years. Yet I must re-register them every October or face a fine if I don’t. And (as of the last time anyway), there was no “re-register” button.

Non-paying tenants could make it unprofitable, repairing extensive damage by tenants, increases in buy to let mortgage interest rates.

Getting locked in to a low rent by rent controls years ago might make it unprofitable.

The extent of capital appreciation depends on house prices, do you have a crystal ball on Irish property prices over the next 5 years?

It's also possible to lose equity based on house price drops you know.

Any thoughts on how regulatory changes introduced by a new government might impact on buy to let property value?

I think everyone has covered this, but I strongly recommend you not do this, speaking as someone who got out, not worth it for so many reasons, many/most mentioned. Aside from the fact that I think 30k isn't sufficient to start out on such a venture, 100% of your savings will be eaten away by this, more than 100% because you will be paying to maintain this venture before you can even save money. Most of the problems have been highlighted. Maybe others have left out other problems for politically correct reasons. If anything, it will limit/prevent you from using your savings (now gone) if an opportunity to buy ever arises (however unlikely it may seem), it will be absolutley gone forever if you invest in a property to rent, unless you can substantially add to your savings by earnings or winning the lotto.

1 Bed apartments? no room for growth in terms of usage for the occupant (owner or tenant), The best and possibly only case scenario (my opinion for now) for buying a 1 bed apartment is it's the only place you can afford when you dont have children, but imo people have gotten trapped in apartments with negative equity and cant afford to sell. For quality of life it may be better to rent somewhere cheaper thats more suitable than own and live somewhere not suitable. It's great if someone isn't spending money on rent, which is all gone once you stop renting (but necessary for many people, ie rentals are necessary). So, an owner paying your own mortgage, invests into your own asset what you would otherwise sink into rent, great.

1 Beds, even many apartments with more than 1 bed, are going to only attract a small certain base of people and they run the risk of being used for situations when the tenants outgrow it but cant move themselves, so potentially excessive wear and tear. Also, places in a cheaper price location are going to return lower rent and possibly only attract certain tenants. Right now the worst things are imo,

1. Eviction bans, because this is the only reason private individuals invest in property, it is an investment, not a short term one, but they need to get it back eventually. 2. It is a very slow costly process dealing with removing either a paying tenant at the legitimate end of a tenancy and even worse dealing with non paying tenants, who can refuse to pay for years and wreck a place and not a cent can be recovered from them, its an absolute joke of a system. 3. Ridiculous bureaucracy, which is in my opinion designed to stymy landlords dealing with problems, which in itself causes problems by encouraging bad tenants to behave badly.

I'd throw the whole idea out right now, but if you need to verify yourself, (pay to) speak to an accountant and clarify what your liability will be for taxes, (pay to?) to speak to a solicitor about what your legal obligations and what little rights you will have. It will be money well spent and likely to save you a fortune. Tax is owed/due on the full rental, many think this is fair, but you will essentially own, maintain and run a property with all its associtaed costs, which you may never be able to use yourself or even recover for sale, for the sole purpose of doing something the State cant or wont do, which is to provide housing and act as an agent to hand over half the money back in tax to the State (potentially 52% in tax alone, never mind other costs). The State who wont provide housing private landlords do. It's a different discussion but many see this tax level as fair and cant understand that it is solely an investment vehicle and not a responsibility to provide housing.

Even if I wont the lottery and would be completely unlikely to need to recover the property for my own use, I would be hard pressed to invest in property for a domestic rental now, because you may not even be able to recover any value from that investment by selling as it is difficult to recover property now, assuming there isn't an eviction ban in place at the whim of the Govt of the day. Never mind the hassle and time of dealing with it. I can speculate, I believe I know why, but wear and tear on certain rentals is very high, white goods dont last when people dont give a damn about misusing them.

I'd look into other investment opportunities, this isn't one, not 100% sure what is. If you have money to burn, then maybe property and is better than leaving it in the bank, other than that, throw this idea out and run away from it fast.

Read all the above comments, OP. I have 2 empty properties and am petrified of rerenting them, currently for sale. However, in hindsight, I believe the best rentals with the best return and least maintenance costs are 1-bedroom apartments. For example, you could buy an apartment in an undesirable town that has reasonable employment in factories and get a working tenant. Just stay away from all the potential tenants that, in legislation, I'm not allowed to mention here. (By the way, the problems are not caused by tenants but by the legislation that encourages them to be bad tenants. Most tenants, despite this, are good.)

I’d suggest broadening the search to include property management companies in the area. They often handle furnished rentals and might know of something that fits the timeframe.
For example, this service on axonproperties.ca might offer options that aren’t listed publicly, especially if they manage student or family rentals that could be temporarily available.

I've reported that "poster" before for dropping random links in threads dug up from the archives.

Can someone give me the TL;DR why are landlors stressed about the reasons mentioned below? Specifically asking about Dublin which seems like a solid market based on the Price To Rent Ratio w/o mortgage.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120310901#Comment_120310901

There is a reason 25,000 landlords have left. Why 40% of all houses sold this year are by landlords and why 20% have indicated they are very likely to sell soon.

When Asked why landlords are selling up – % of responses

No longer wish to be a landlord – 48

Taxation is too high on rental income – 45

Being a landlord is not profitable – 43

The regulatory environment – 36

I am retiring and my properties are my pension – 26

The property is no longer in negative equity – 24

Too much time needed in managing properties – 22

A lot of the landlords "leaving the market" are small-time landlords with just a couple of properties at most, or so-called "accidental landlords" who only opted to rent their place out because selling wasn't desirable or viable for them at the time. In both cases, they usually have other sources of income besides their rental properties, meaning their rental income is taxed at their marginal rate (which is likely to be most or all in the 40% income tax bracket and a higher USC bracket), thus the "taxes are too high" claim, and their rental properties are often mortgaged, not owned free and clear.

As for the "not profitable", small landlords often tend to confuse profit with cash flow and don't understand that the principal portion of their mortgage repayments are in fact profit, so they assume they are not making a profit if the rent doesn't fully cover their entire mortgage payment and all expenses with something left over. Many small landlords would also have legitimate issues with covering negative cash flow out of their own pockets in the short term, as well, so even if they do actually understand that they are making a long-term profit, that doesn't mean the situation is sustainable in the short term, if the rent (after taxes, mind) isn't in fact covering the full mortgage payment.

Finally, being a landlord isn't for everyone; it is a job and requires time, effort, and money, and there is risk involved, as it is difficult to remove non-performing tenants or to terminate a tenancy even with a completely legitimate valid reason.

Never ever go by "surveys"

Firstly it's usually those with a negative disposition that answer it and, as you show, they allow you pick multiple reasons.

The main "landlords" leaving are accidental landlords.

Also you have a natural disposal as more elderly ones decide to retire as landlords.

I've an investment property. I'll sell in about 15 years when I'm in my 70's - gives me a few good years to enjoy the funds

While the OP has probably made their decision by now as their post is over a year old, I need to correct Soirish.

For the majority of resident one off landlords the income tax rate will be 40%, Income tax, PRSI and USC will be in the region of 52%. So instead of a net rent of 20K its more like 14K based on your calculations. If the OP only has a deposit of 30K their mortgage will be in the region of 1,450-1,500 per month for the next 30 years thats ~17.5K per year. In 30 years they are in for a hell of a pay day but for the next 30 years unless rents rise significantly and interest rates stay low they are going to be paying 3.5K with their form 11 each year, thats 105K over the lifetime of the mortgage.

If you get an not functioning tenant you could have to pay the mortgage on the rental property, your rent and legal fees without any additional income.