What Would It Rent For, and Are Prices Rising? Rent, Yield and Price Trends
Two numbers sit behind every purchase, whether you plan to live in the house or let it: what the home would rent for, and which way prices around it are moving. Both are published by the State, and neither appears on a listing.
Where the rent figures come from
Landlords must register every tenancy with the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB), including the rent. The RTB and the ESRI publish the average rent of those registered tenancies each quarter, broken down by area, property type and number of bedrooms, and the CSO makes the full table available as open data.
These are rents on actual registered tenancies, not asking rents on a portal, so they run behind the market in a fast-moving area. The finest breakdown is a town, a Dublin postal district or a county, which makes it an area benchmark rather than a quote for one house.
Gross yield, and why it is only the starting point
Gross yield is a year’s rent divided by the price: €1,500 a month on a €360,000 home is €18,000 a year, or 5%. It is the quick way to compare one area with another, and to sanity-check a rent-versus-buy decision if you are buying to live in.
It is not what a landlord keeps. Income tax on the rent, Local Property Tax, insurance, repairs, management, RTB registration and empty weeks between tenants all come out before the net figure. Rent increases on existing tenancies are also capped under rent control, so a sitting tenant’s rent, not the market average, sets what you can charge in the near term.
Reading the price trend
The CSO’s Residential Property Price Index is built each month from stamp-duty returns. It adjusts for the mix of homes that happened to sell, so it follows the price of comparable homes over time rather than the average of whatever came to market. It is published roughly six weeks after the month it covers.
Outside Dublin the index is published for regions, not counties: the Border, the Midlands, the West, the Mid-East, the Mid-West, the South-East and the South-West. Dublin has its own series for each of its four council areas, and apartments are tracked only for Dublin and for the rest of the country as a whole. A regional rise of 5% says the market around you is rising; it does not say this house is worth 5% more than last year.
How a VeriSale report grades it
VeriSale reads the latest RTB average rent for the property’s area — by bedroom count, and for apartments where the address shows one — and, when you search by Eircode, divides it against the local sold-price median for an indicative gross yield. It adds the CSO price index for the property’s region: the change over 12 months, 3 months and 5 years, against the national figure. These are benchmarks, not risks, so they are reported without a grade and do not move the overall score.
- Rent and yield found“Average rent in Cork City ≈ €1,731/month (2025 Q4); indicative gross yield ≈ 5.3%; regional prices up 4.9% over 12 months.”
- No local rent figureThe report falls back to the county or city average and says so, or tells you to check current asking rents.
- Price trendAlways named for the area it covers, such as “the South-West (Cork, Kerry)” or “Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown”, and never presented as this home’s value.
This is one of 39 checks in the report, each graded A–F with a plain-language summary. The report compiles public data; it is not a survey or legal advice.
What to ask before you bid
- If the property is let, what is the current rent, when was it last reviewed, and is the tenancy registered with the RTB?
- Will the tenant stay or leave on sale, and is there any notice of termination already served?
- How do recent sales on this road compare with the regional price trend — is this street keeping pace with its region?
Frequently asked questions
Are RTB rents the same as asking rents?
No. They are the rents on tenancies registered with the RTB, so they include tenancies agreed months ago and tend to sit below current asking rents in a rising market. Check live listings in the immediate area as well.
What is a good rental yield in Ireland?
It depends on the area and the type of home: yields tend to be lower where prices are highest, such as much of Dublin, and higher in towns where prices are lower relative to rents. Compare gross yields like for like, then work out the net figure after tax and costs.
Why is the price trend for a region rather than my town?
The CSO publishes its price index for regions outside Dublin and for Dublin’s four council areas. It is the official measure of price movement, but it is not published at town or street level. For the street, use the recent sold prices from the Property Price Register.
Does a rising price trend mean I should bid more?
Not on its own. It tells you the market around you is moving; the most similar recent sales on the same road, the condition of the house and your surveyor’s view decide what this one is worth.
Does VeriSale value the property?
No. The report gives area benchmarks — sold prices, rents, yield and the regional price trend — so you can judge the asking price yourself. It is not a valuation; a lender or a valuer provides that.
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