Music.

If agus faulter arash to the Crazy House Prices Podcast.

Now, rent prices are insane.

Buying feels impossible.

So in 2025, what's actually the smarter move in Ireland right now?

I'm your host, Ciarán McQueen, and today I'm going to be talking about if it is better to rent or to buy in Ireland right now in 2025.

Now, I'm a firm believer in home ownership because renting in Ireland is an absolute nightmare.

Tenants live in constant fear of eviction, and there are also lots of issues with the RTB and let's not forget that thousands of landlords are not even registered with them and many rents are cash in hand too so they're likely not paying any tax.

So in this episode I'll go through the latest stats from the CSO and from DAF.ie and I'll show you side-by-side comparisons for Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and some tourist towns as well and crucially I'll explain the big rent pressure zone rules changes coming in 2026 that will help reshape renting for years to come in Ireland.

Now, the CSO stats show that the median sales price nationally of all homes is €370,000.

In Dublin, it's €485,000.

But some places like Dun Laoghaire and the posh places, way more than that, €700,000, €800,000.

And the cheapest county is Leitrim at €186,000.

I work with a guy from Leitrim and he is very proud of this factory.

Now, in terms of stock, there are 12,100 secondhand homes on the market on the 1st of June in 2025.

That's up from a record low of 9,300 on March 1st, which was horrendous.

But it's still far below what a healthy market is.

And according to Daft and The Economist, a healthy market should have around 30,000 homes for sale.

We've only 12,000.

So, you know, we're nearly two thirds off where it should be.

So $12,000 compared to $30,000 is really, really scarily low.

And because we have so little stock for people to buy, that means people can't get out of their rentals, which means we've no rental supply.

And everything new being built is either for rent or only a very small fraction of new builds every year actually comes for sale.

So that's why we're finding more and more that people are moving towards trying to buy secondhand homes and rentals.

When there are so few available, prices go up and they're going up for rent and they're going up for sales as well.

But on the rental side, the national average rent is €2,023 a month.

That's up 7.3% year on year.

And in Dublin, the average rent is €2,535 a month.

And I just checked that.

And as of today, I'm recording this on the 21st of August, 2025, there are only 1,652 properties available to rent on Daft.

That is very, very close to a historical low, but it's an extremely.

Extremely low supply level.

So yeah, both buying and renting are extremely expensive, but the supply crisis is like really clearly crushing renters as well as homebuyers.

So both are really, really struggling at the moment, but I just want to talk a little bit about the horror of renting so let's just put the kind of numbers aside for a second and have a little look at what people are dealing with when they're renting because if you're a type of person who's never rented or maybe you don't have friends that are renting or you're not really talking to people that are renting that often you probably have no idea how horrendous it is at the moment so it's got lots of issues with rpz so and so landlords are kind of something not not all not all landlords but some landlords are dodging their rent pressure zone caps by charging extra fees for things like parking and stuff.

And then there's thousands, as I said, that aren't even registered with the RTB, which means you can't claim back your rent credits.

And they're just pocketing all that in cash and not paying tax.

It's just, it's awful.

And just more worryingly is the insecurity.

It's absolutely brutal.

If you've got kids in school, imagine the anxiety that like your child finally settles in and then you can just be kicked out of your home at any stage because the landlord wants to sell or a family member, wink, wink, suddenly needs to place.

So it's just a really precarious position to be in.

And just let me give you a real world comparison.

There are three bed apartments right beside my house here in Dublin 8 that are renting for over €5,000 a month.

Now, I've no idea who's actually paying that.

I don't know whether the council are leasing them, if it's companies, whatever.

I can't imagine any normal family is paying €5,000 a month a rent for a three bed apartment.

But basically, my mortgage on an A rated three bed house, I've got a back garden, I've got a front garden, I've got a driveway, I'm facing onto a green.

My mortgage is €1,450 a month.

So €5,000 a month for a three bed apartment versus my mortgage €1,450 a month.

So that's not just a gap, that's just daylight robbery.

Now let's look at some of the numbers then for Dublin, right?

So your average rent in Dublin is €2,535 a month.

Now you might be listening to that saying, please find me somewhere for two and a half grand a month, I can't find anywhere.

And that's, these are just the stats from the latest report.

And I know real world experience is probably seeing things a lot higher than that.

But then in terms of buying the median Dublin sales price was 485,000 euro over the last 12 months.

So with a 10% deposit then you're going to be borrowing 436,500 euro and today's average mortgage rates are around about 4%.

You probably get a little bit lower than that if you shopped around but let's just use the average of 4%.

Your monthly repayment on that 485,000 would be around about 2,083 euro.

So on a monthly basis.

You know, that's, it's still a good 20% cheaper than renting.

And that's if you can find somewhere to rent for two and a half grand a month.

But here's the part that people don't realize, right, with mortgages.

So say over 30 years, you're going to pay back on that mortgage, you're going to pay back a total of 750,000 euro.

So you've borrowed 436,500, but you're going to be paying back three quarters of a million on that.

So of that 313,000 is interest alone.

Now that's a lot, but at the end of the 30 years, you'll own your own home and that home will probably still be worth a lot more than €485,000 in 30 years.

It could be double, it could be triple, it could be quadruple that.

Now to compare with renting then, if you're renting for 30 years at say €2,387 a month, let's say, you'll hand over €860,000 to a landlord.

But at the end, you obviously don't have the asset.

So you're looking at 860,000 euro renting versus three quarters of a 750,000 euro mortgage.

One leaves you with a house and with equity and the other leaves you with basically nothing.

And that's, you know, an ideal scenario where you're not being kicked out and your rent isn't going up, which it obviously will.

So just, I know it's not comparing apples and apples, but just to kind of give you some numbers on that, obviously your rent is going to go up and maybe your mortgage will go up if you don't lock in fixed interest rates.

Like I know Avant, we're doing 30-year mortgages with a fixed rate of 1.95%, which looking back now is like winning the lotto.

You can see there on the rent, like it is quite dead money.

Whereas when you're paying your mortgage, you're building an asset.

You're probably overpaying for your mortgage protection.

Now, I'm not because I use Beat the Bank and I've been dealing with them for years.

They're an Irish company and in a world where most companies in the home buying process are out for themselves.

It's refreshing to have one that genuinely cares about you.

As cliche as that sounds, but they really do.

So how they work is they check the main insurers, they match the best price, and then they take more off.

It's quick, it's online, and they handle all the paperwork.

They also do income protection, life insurance, and soon they'll be doing home insurance, car insurance, even pet insurance.

So www.beatthebank.ie to get a quote in seconds.

Now, before we look at Cork, Galway and Limerick, I just want to give you a quick reminder that you can support the podcast on Patreon.

It's three euro a month, which is less than a coffee.

And you'll get bonus Q&As where I answer every single question sent in.

Plus, it's a private community of buyers.

We're on the same boat.

It's quite nice and you have access to my Instagram audience then if you want to ask any questions that I can't maybe answer for you.

So it's patreon.com forward slash crazy house prices.

But okay, let's look at other cities.

So Cork City, your median sale price at the moment is €370,000.

So the mortgage on that will be €1,680.

The rent will be €1,800.

So buying is cheaper there.

Numeric City, median sale price €311,000.

Your mortgage on that will be €1,420.

Euro rent will be 1,615 so uh buying is cheaper again there Galway City your median 426,000 euro your mortgage will be 1,930 euro a month your rent will be 1,885 uh so your rent's actually a little bit cheaper there in Galway by about 50 quid and then in Waterford your median house price uh was.

276,000 euro your mortgage on that would be around about 1200 euro a month whereas your rent uh average was around 1400 euro a month.

So buying is a lot cheaper there as well.

So as you can see, in pretty much every city, buying is either way, way cheaper or at worst the same as renting.

And again, these are just stats from the reports.

I know prices are probably a lot different in the real world when you're currently looking.

But let's look at rural towns and tourist towns.

So outside of the cities, the Midlands and border counties are actually rising the fastest, up 11% to 16% in terms of house prices.

And then rents are also exploding.

So Galway County is up 13.3%, Waterford up 13%, Kerry up 11.5%.

And then in tourist towns like around Kerry, Cork, Galway, Waterford, Airbnb is ripping the guts out of supply down there.

So landlords are kind of flipping to short term less to get more money in.

And then that means that families who need long-term homes then are locked out of the supply.

So Airbnb is having a massive impact in those kind of tourist towns.

Now let's have a little look at the RPZ real changes coming in 2026.

RPZ is rent pressure zones.

So from March 2026, there are going to be some rent changes again.

So rent pressure zones will apply nationwide now with a 2% annual cap and there will be no fault evictions will be banned.

So six years if your landlord has wanted three properties or completely banned if they own four plus so on paper that looks like security but landlords can reset rents to full market rates between tenancies which is really really important so If you're, say, lucky enough to stay put in your rental, you'll be protected, hopefully.

But if you ever have to move, save a new job, or you have a start in a family or a bigger family, or you get divorced or whatever, you can face huge rent hikes as the landlord resets the price.

So on paper, there seems to be a little bit more security, but affordability could actually get a lot worse.

So where does that leave us?

Well, in 2025, the numbers show that buying is almost always cheaper and better option than renting.

And when you factor in equity, stability and reality of how grim renting is in Ireland, it's not even close.

Add in the 2026 RPZ changes and renting could become even more brutal for new tenants while homeowners get to lock in their repayments and actually build wealth.

And just that sense of not worrying about being evicted at any point is worth more than any money, I think.

So my verdict is, as always, buying beats renting in 2025, and I think it'll beat it even more in 2026.

Now, if you're listening to this and you want a full roadmap to buying, come to my How to Buy a Home in Ireland webinar.

I am running one very, very soon.

I'll be announcing the date and the time on my Instagram.

But basically, in the webinar, I'll show you everything, what to do six months before your mortgage approval, tips for bidding wars.

Basically all the tricks I've picked up in six years of running crazy house prices and there will also be a 72 hour replay and you get bonus pdfs that you can download will save you months of stress it'll be really educational for you and it's basically all of the little tips and tricks from my book from my instagram every single thing I've learned over the last six years all the little bits I've put out there that have helped people all into one 90 minute webinar and you get to replay for three days afterwards or 72 hours and it only costs 39 euros so keep an eye on my instagram for when the next one is doing i just did one for charity the other night for oscars kids a childhood cancer charity and we raised 1300 euro for them thanks to finance solutions who matched all the donations for tickets so really really good it went down really well and the feedback was great so i'm just kind of fine-tuning a couple of little bits from the webinar and i'll be announcing very soon when that is available.

August, Sine, renting versus buying in 2025, both are very expensive, but only one bill, security, stability, and wealth, and that peace of mind on not being kicked out of your home at any moment.

So if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend, tag me on Instagram, and leave a quick review.

Don't forget Patreon for the bonus Q&As and the webinar if you want the full roadmap.

So I will chat to you all soon.

Sláonga fóill.

You.