PRS reforms: landlord reaction

The Week in Housing 27/06/25

As it’s nearly July it’s time for me to take my regular summer break. I might write a few short posts over the next two months, especially if anything interesting happens on the PRS reforms or the Government publish the new housing strategy, but for the most part I won’t be writing until the next academic year. Thanks to everyone who read and shared my work over the past year, to all those who wrote guest posts, and especially to paid subscribers. If you find this newsletter useful, please consider becoming paid subscriber.

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I’m returning to the PRS reforms, this week looking at the landlord/industry reaction. There will be a major lobbying campaign by industry during the preparation of the legislation needed to enact the reforms announced by the Minister earlier this month. But there are also some signs of cautious optimism being expressed by the private sector.

The Irish Property Owners Association have come out guns blazing. Their press release makes no mention of the fact that landlords will now be able to increase rents to market rates between tenancies, instead focusing on restrictions on landlords’ ability to evict for sale of property. They claim that this restriction ‘undermines landlords’ property rights’ and, by ‘requiring’ sales with tenant-in-situ will reduce values of relevant properties by 40%. No evidence is provided for the 40% figure.

Their perspective is largely shared by Keith Lowe, Chief Executive of DNG group. He did recognise that some of the reforms are welcome, but raised a number of issues, noting that according to DNG’s research 18% of property sales are currently landlords leaving the market (i.e. prior to the reforms). He believes the new reforms will worsen this, and also notes that properties sold with tenant-in-situ will be devalued. Most importantly, he raises ‘constitutional concerns’:

“Can the State stop someone from obtaining vacant possession of their own property and hence make them sell at a discounted price? – This was not on the table when they purchased the property.”

Lowe goes on to advocate the following amendments:

· The right for a small landlord to sell one property per year with vacant possession

· The right for a large landlord to sell up to nine properties annually with vacant possession in line with the Tyrrelstown amendment

· Redefining a “large landlord” as having 10+ tenancies, not four.

On the impact of selling with tenant-in-situ, Richard O’Neill (Managing Director, Artis property consultants) crunched some numbers and argues that the average discount is over 11%. The discount depends on how far below market the existing rent is compared to the market:

• A €500/month rent gap = average 19.5% in value discount vs. vacant value

• A €250/month rent gap = average 9.75% in value discount vs. vacant value

Given the deregulation of between tenancy rent setting will lead to a much smaller gap between actual rents and market rents, we would expect the average discount value to reduce somewhat.

In an investor note on IRES REIT, Davy Stockbrokers note that tenants vacate approximately 14% of IRES properties each year. This should mean that within 8 years rents across their portfolio will be tracking much closer to market rates.

Finally, JLL’s Living Report H1 2025 strikes a much more optimistic note. Apartment completions will continue to fall in 2025, down 40.3% from 2023 and 17.8% from 2024. But as interest rates decline, and in the wake of the recent reforms, they anticipate apartment completions will surpass their 2023 high by 2026 (see graph below).

Unlike most of the commentary in Ireland, which is uniformly negative, JLL highlight the rather obvious attractions of the Irish market from an investor point of view:

· Ireland is among the top 3 European countries for employment, GDP, and population growth in next 5 years

· We have the highest proportion of under 20s in the EU (27% of population)

· 17% of population are non-Irish citizens (who rent at much higher rates)

Looking more specifically at the recent reforms, JLL note that:

“The outlook for living investment in Ireland is cautiously optimistic, underpinned by strong economic fundamentals and an engaged government attempting to attract institutional investment… The government's active pursuit of institutional investment in the living sector is a positive step toward boosting the supply of new units… [T]he current coalition has shifted the stance away from previous governments and now recognises the significant role private investors will play in addressing the housing crisis”.

Based on the above, what might be some of the key areas of the current reforms that come under fire during what will no doubt be intense lobbying?

1. Constitutionality: the most important thing to bear in mind on this front is that for small landlords Notices of Termination can be issued at the end of six years. But crucially, they can also be issued under the ‘hardship clause’. This should shore up the constitutionality of the new reforms. However, large landlords do not enjoy the benefit of these two measures, which may raise concerns. In any case, most people seem to think a constitutional challenge would be a good thing as there hasn’t been a case dealing with the state’s ability to restrict property rights for the greater social good in quite some time (at least not one related to the issues discussed here).

2. Categorization of large landlords: the Government is likely to come under pressure to increase the number of properties associated with the ‘large landlord’ category. It could be argued that four is quite a low threshold, in that there is a big difference in owning four properties and being an institutional landlord. However, landlords with four properties are clearly professional investors and on that basis should be in a position to provide long term housing (in my view). From the Government’s point of view, the trouble is that while most of the debate is on ‘mom and pop’ landlords, on the one hand, and institutional landlords, on the other, the majority of tenancies are actually held by landlords who own between two and 100 properties. And we know rather little about this cohort and their investment behaviour (a topic I hope to return to soon).

3. Right to evict broadened: DNG’s idea of allowing landlords to issue a certain number of notices of termination within tenancy periods per year is, in my view, a non-starter. First, it would completely undermine the Government’s reforms. Second, if you look at the table below you can see the top five reasons that families presented as homeless in the first half of 2025 (data here). Eviction from the PRS is a bigger driver of children becoming homeless than all of the other major categories combined.

Events & news

The Housing Agency’s Research Support Programme is now open for applications. The School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice have new CPD style course for people working with people of refugee background.

What I’m reading

A great post by Jasmine Ryan on her Substack takes a critical look at the AHB sector. The Irish Tenant Engagement Network have just published a new report on best practice based on evidence from across Europe. The latest issue of the Radical Housing Justice is just out.