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Rented from Private Landlords 2022
Introduction
This research paper has been prepared by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) as part of an exploration into the difference between Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) private tenancy figures and Census 2022 Housing figures on private landlords. This research paper was discussed at the Joint Committee on Housing Local Government and Heritage on 10 October 2023, at which the CSO outlined its work to establish the difference between the datasets and any additional information possible on the characteristics of the properties or the rental arrangements.
The Committee’s discussion can be found at the below web link:
Joint Housing Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage - 10 October 2023
The headline findings from Census 2022 were that 330,632 households indicated they rented their homes from a private landlord on 03 April 2022. The RTB published figure for the number of private rented tenancies registered with them as of 31 December 2022 was 246,453. This difference set amounts to 84,179 tenancies.
It should be noted that the original difference of 84,179 related to the difference between the RTB private tenancy figure on 31/12/2022 and the CSO’s rented from private landlord figure from Census night on 03/04/2022.
After an extensive data matching exercise was completed, the final difference between Census 2022 data and RTB data was 73,002 unmatched private rentals (private rentals on the Census 2022 file but not matched in the RTB data). Throughout this research paper, reference is made to the difference between the two data sources as the ‘difference set’. The difference set of 73,002 records is lower than the original difference of 84,179, due to the following reasons:
- If a property was found to be availing of the rent-a-room scheme in Revenue Rent Tax Credit data, it was taken out of the difference set.
- If a property was found to be owned by a local authority in Local Property Tax (LPT) data, it was removed from the difference set.
- Dwellings in which more than one household was recorded in the Census were also excluded.
Based on an extensive assessment of administrative data two categories were identified among the difference set as follows:
- Dwellings with informal letting arrangements: Those rental properties which were not registered with the RTB and possessed characteristics which may indicate they may have been subject to informal rental arrangements.
- Dwellings with formal rental arrangements: Those rental properties which were not registered with the RTB, but possessed certain characteristics which made them likely to be in the private rental market.
The analysis indicated the existence of 47,754 (65.4%) possible informal rental arrangements and 25,248 (34.6%) possible formal rental arrangements.
This paper uses Census information to provide additional insights to the characteristics of both of these categories. Reviewing the Census information under the headings Geography, Dwelling characteristics, Occupants’ characteristics, and Monthly rent, the following was established:
- The possible informal rental dwellings were more likely to be located in predominantly rural areas.
- They were also more likely to be detached houses than possible formal rental dwellings. People living in possible informal rental dwellings were less likely to be unrelated to each other than those living in possible formal rental dwellings.
- They were also paying on average 30% less rent than the people living in the possible formal rented dwellings.
This work was facilitated through a data matching exercise using Eircodes as a unique identifier which helps identify records in both datasets and determines the difference set in Census records. Administrative data sources – such as the Revenue Local Property Tax – were also used to complement this analysis and the RTB provided different extracts from their data sources to resolve timing issues.
It should be noted that certain informal rental arrangements in the Irish housing market may be currently outside the scope of the RTB regulations – such as owners’ relatives living in a property - but may still lead to a positive response on the Census form. Further information on the methodology and definitions used in this paper, are provided in the paper. It should be noted that the above figures are based on the CSO’s interpretation of the categories for research purposes only.
It should be noted that, in accordance with the Statistics Act 1993, data published by the CSO is published in aggregate form only, which means no person or household can be identified from the data we publish. On this basis, no identifiable information related to the datasets analysed in this report can be shared with the Committee or the RTB.