Eoghan Murphy, the Minister for Housing, has announced that tougher regulations will come in from June 2019 for landlords letting rooms on the website ‘Airbnb’.
The announcement was made Thursday, October 25th. The Minister said that under these new restrictions, owners of buy-to-let properties, like the ones on Airbnb, will need planning permission from local councils if they want to short-term let their second homes or apartments for more than three months a year.
Mr Murphy said that in areas of high housing demand, like Dublin, that it will be very unlikely that landlords would be granted to use their properties as short-term lets over a long period of time.
“Unless it’s your own home you can’t put it out for short-term letting” he added.
According to the Minister between 1,000 and 3,000 homes in the greater Dublin area could come back into the long-term rental market as a result of these tougher regulations.
This could free up housing for students in Dublin, who over the past few years have found it increasingly difficult to find accommodation, not to mention affordable accommodation.
Last April, Dublin City University students, held multiple protests as part of a campaign called ‘Shanowen Shakedown’. Students were furious that the privately owned ‘Shanowen Square’ student accommodation was charging just under €9,000 for a single room in a shared apartment for 9 months.
“I feel with the release of these homes it will take the pressure off college students.
Finding homes is difficult enough but when many do it is outrageously out of their budget and many take out big loans to cover the cost of renting because there are very little options. If there was more options maybe the cost would be slightly lower” explained Lorna Lawless, a third year student in DCU.
“I think it would make a difference as it is hard to find somewhere and it’s always so stressful, at least when this comes in maybe there will be a bit more of a chance [for students]” added Caitlin Laird, a final year Journalism student.
“I think this scheme is a step forward in the right direction, instead of having homes in Dublin open to a certain market it destroys that barrier and makes greater opportunity for anyone to rent in the capital” said Killian Whelan Mullally, a Communications student.
According to statistics generated by Airbnb in 2017, around 7,000 properties in Ireland being rented on the website are not the primary homes of their owners. Roughly, this is a third of all Irish listings on the website.