The tug of war between private landlords and tenants and the rents struck between the two is of constant interest on here as rents are one of the predictors of property values. Private rents in Irelandare now increasing at 4% per annum according to the latest CSO inflation figures, but we wait to see if the reductions in rent assistance allowances provided by the Department of Social Protection which were announced in January 2012 will have any knock-on effect on private rents. Meanwhile last week, we had confirmation in a series of questions and answers in the Dail that there is no sign of the number of landlords reducing or of a concentration in the control of rented residential property. The figures were provided in the context of Ireland’s Non Principal Private Residence charge, a €200 per annum charge introduced in 2009 which applies to practically all second and more residential dwellings in the State – there is a very small list of exemptions.
So what do we find out? We find out that 135,971 people paid the NPPR charge on one dwelling and we know from Census 2011 that there are 59,395 holiday homes in the State, so that indicates that there are still a very large number of small-scale landlords in Ireland as presumably the non-holiday homes non-principal private residences will be available for rent. We find out that the number of landlords with 100+ properties has increased from 26 in 2009 to 38 today, a 46% increase. The number of non principal properties increased by nearly 7,000 between 2010 and 2011 and there are now 339,431 such properties in the State upon which the charge is paid..There are only two landlords in the State with over 200 dwellings so it will remain difficult in the tug of war between landlords and tenants for landlords to act as a cartel, but the evidence is that increased mortgage costs last year and the €100 household charge this year – which applies to all property so landlords are now paying a total of €300 per dwelling in charges – has seemingly propelled landlords to marginally gain ground in the tug of war.
NAMA Wine Lake 
@MWL
Some very interesting figures. Approx 340,000 second homes less 60,000 holidays homes=280,000 letting properties at average rent €9,000= ~2.5 billion.
There is from memory approx €30? billion in buy to let mortgages in Irl @5% =1.5 billion.
So there is still a cool billion in profit to residential landlords, despite all the pleas.
No sign of pressure to dispose of properties on this group. Looking at the figures you provide, there have been no disposals.
And it means that the holiday home owners have not been squeezed yet to the point where the holiday home is put on the block.
It seems the chill waters of austerity have not risen high enough to touch the landlord class just yet.
@Joseph, given that there are less than 800k mortgages on 2m dwellings in the State and that BTL mortgages might be for less than 100% the value of a property, I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that landlords are not generally rolling in lucre!
@NWL
You may be right, depending on whether Niall is right concerning ‘units’ being counted as ‘houses’ for this tax. Nevertheless, there are about 150,000 second property owners (working from your list above), who since 2009 have suffered little or no rental income reduction, apart from vacancies, and have clearly not had to dispose of the properties.
Since 2009, there have been huge numbers added to the category of unemployed, who have suffered catastrophic falls in income.
My point is simply this. Despite the falls in property values, the landlord class (probably about 7.5 % of the adult working population 150000/2000000) have suffered little by comparison with the working population and have been shielded from the market by both govt in the form of its keeping rents up and by the banks in terms of ‘forebearance’. A ‘forebearance’ not noted in any landlords that I was acquainted with or had the pleasure of renting from.
There will of course have been individual landlords who have suffered and this I regret but as a group they have not suffered to the point where property is being disposed of.
As a class in Irish society, they have been favoured in the resources and policies of the State.
@ Joseph A large house in Rathmines divided into eight units is counted as eight properties for NPPR purposes. Your rental figures look a bit high.
There is a serious problem also in saying what is debt relating to the purchase of a PPR only and how much of the debt secured on PPR’s was extracted by way of re-mortgages/top ups to fund deposits on NPPRs.
There is also the issue of vacant houses!
@Niall
Are you sure that ‘units’ within a house are counted individually for Second Home property tax.(non-principal private residences)?
I am aware that units are counted individually for the purposes of the PRTB, where in another act of idiocy, the primary data identifier is not the property but the individual tenancy agreement. Even though all tenancies have now been obliged to be registered for a number of years, I doubt that the PRTB could provide a list of rental properties in the country.
@ Joseph
“The charge is payable in respect of each unit of accommodation. Where a building is divided into flats or bedsits, the charge applies to each flat or bedsit e.g. if the dwelling is divided into four bedsits a charge of €200 x 4 = €800 would apply.”
source: http://www.nppr.ie
@ NWL One of the answers to the sequence of questions in Deputy Nash’s name was answered with an earlier question, http://www.kildarestreet.com/wrans/?id=2012-04-18.3236.0.
The increase in the number of larger landlords is perhaps down to developers and receiver/liquidators letting properties which cannot be sold.
The answers to questions 902 & 903 relating to the number of late registrations in 2010 & 2011 suggests that there are still people being flushed out
There is also a discrepancy between the number of NPPR accounts between the answers to question 901 & 905.
We await further details.
NWL,
AFAIK the regular CB arrears statistics exclude BTL. Arrears on BTL are available in some of the banks’ annual reports. For example PTSB BTL arrears rate is 25%. This is a whooper.
What do you reckon is going on? Rents seem firm, ecb rate is very low, not sure about the vacancy rates; so why are BTLs in such difficulty?
Two things:
1. The fact that owners of more than one property paid multiple “household charges”, and the non-primary residence charge too, is one of the underappreciated ways in which the household charge is a form of progressive taxation.
2. If I remember correctly, Hogan announced a day or two after the household charge deadline that the non-primary residence additional charge would be abolished when the real property tax came in. I have no idea why he did this, as it seemed to be causally tossing away actually-collected tax revenues of E50m or so, in favour of a not-yet-securely-collected property tax. Perhaps the DoF should press Hogan to reverse this decision, as, right now, we need every penny we can get.
@AM you can catch Boucher on RTE talking about rents getting ‘diverted” from BTL.
“He said that growing arrears in the bank’s buy-to-let mortgage book is ”problematic”. He said that 500 staff are now working on arrears cases. He also said the bank is appointing rent receivers to landlords who hoard rent and do not give it to the bank.”
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0424/bank-of-ireland-indicates-more-job-losses-possible.html
Why are rents holding. They should be half what they are at the moment.
@Vince
Excellent question.
@ Vince It maybe a few months before the DSP reductions to rent supplement kick in, but you should see a drop then. Rent supplement has acted in a manner to underpin rents.
There is a point however where it is cheaper for a landlord to leave a property empty.
There will always be a premium for certain areas, but no shortage of cheap rents in Dublin 15,22 or 24!
I’ve been having a look at this rent supplement from the DSP yesterday. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something so convoluted in my life.
This is no benign help to the lower paid and those getting a State payment. This is a blatant in your face transfer to the landlords.
It shouldn’t matter if you are right wing or left this payment goes a good distance to criminalizing those who get it. It transfers Rights vested in the Citizen and actively promoted social engineering since the renter requires the landlords acceptance of the DSP involvement.
At it’s core it is nothing more than a sub-contracted workhouse where a semi-D could be gutted Kitchenettes showers and toilets installed and four/five even six distinct households created. Each capable of drawing the Rent Allowance.
@vince
When rents do correct downward as you correctly predict, presumably this will finally put an end to those suggesting the housing market is currently in a bottoming phase.
I predicted a 66% PTT fall about 4 years ago – which I have now revised to about 75% accounted for by the fall in nominal rents in the interim. So from the official CSO figures we’re looking like an additional fall of over 50% from here.
Hmmm…. I wonder what the figure would be if we included those that didn’t pay the charge? It would increase quite a bit, I would have thought.
[…] of landlords who registered Non Principal Private Residence (NPPR) in 2011 183,551 NAMAwinelake 9 Number of NPPR registered in 2011 for the NPPR Tax 339,431 10 Number of housing […]
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