· The Irish Property Owners Association (IPOA) has warned that the latest figures from the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) show Ireland’s private rental market is continuing to shift towards larger landlords and institutional investors, while the supply of homes provided by smaller landlords continues to decline.
· The RTB’s quarterly update for Q2 2026 shows that landlords with four or more tenancies now provide 55.7% of all private tenancies, despite accounting for just 11.8% of private landlords. The share of tenancies provided by landlords with 100 or more tenancies has increased for the 13th consecutive quarter, reaching 15.6%, its highest level since the current RTB series began.
· The figures also show that 4,031 Notices of Termination were issued in Q2, bringing the estimated total for the first half of 2026 to approximately 11,100. Of the Q2 Notices of Termination, 50.2% were issued because landlords intended to sell their property.
· The shift towards larger landlords is particularly stark in Dublin, where landlords with 100 or more tenancies now provide almost 30% of all private tenancies, compared with just 3.9% outside the capital.
· The growth in cost-rental and Approved Housing Body (AHB) tenancies contrasts sharply with the stagnation in private rental supply, with cost-rental tenancies increasing by 82.5% year-on-year and AHB tenancies by 11.5%, while private tenancies increased by just 1.5%. The IPOA says this highlights the disparity between heavily supported forms of rental provision and smaller private landlords, who receive no comparable support to bring additional homes to the market.
· The IPOA said the Government must urgently create a more favourable environment for smaller landlords, recognising rental activity as a business and providing targeted tax incentives to encourage landlords to remain in the market and bring additional homes into the rental sector.
Mary Conway, Chair of the IPOA, said:
· “These figures show a rental market that is increasingly being dominated by larger landlords, while the traditional small landlord, who provide the vast majority of more affordable accommodation in our communities, is finding it harder and harder to remain in, or enter, the sector.”
· “The fact that landlords with four or more properties now provide more than half of all private rental tenancies, despite representing less than 12% of landlords, tells us something important about where the market is heading.”
· “At the same time, the number of landlords with a single tenancy fell by 276 in the second quarter. These are the landlords who traditionally provide homes in communities across the country, including in rural and regional areas. If they continue to disappear from the market, there will inevitably be less choice and less flexibility for tenants.”
· “We are seeing very strong growth in areas of the rental market that benefit from significant Government support, while the supply provided by smaller private landlords is barely growing. If the Government wants more homes available to rent, it needs to look at providing meaningful incentives to smaller landlords too, because if our members received appropriate tax incentives, we would see more homes brought into the rental market.”
· “The Government needs to recognise that small landlords provide homes in towns, villages and communities throughout Ireland. Creating a rental market that is increasingly dependent on larger landlords risks reducing choice for tenants, driving up prices, and weakening the private rental sector.”
· “The Government has an opportunity in Budget 2027 to change direction If we want more homes available to rent, we need policies that make it attractive for smaller landlords to remain in the sector and encourage those with suitable accommodation to enter it.”