Landlord size, rent controls and rent pricing behaviour: Evidence from Ireland

The design and effectiveness of rent controls and the role of large landlords in rental markets are both under active debate across Europe. This study uses a novel annual property-level dataset covering all tenancy registrations in Ireland Q2 2022-Q4 2024 to explore how landlord size interacts with rent controls to influence pricing behaviour. Both the magnitude and timing of price adjustments in rent-controlled and non-rent-controlled areas across both ongoing tenancies and at the point of turnover are studied. Despite rising average market rent levels, individual property-level rent increases were modest (2.5% on average), with 60% of rents remaining unchanged year-on-year. Rent-controlled areas saw lower price rises, with evident bunching around the 2% rent control cap. At tenant turnover, rent increases were 8 percentage points lower in rent-controlled versus non-rent-controlled areas, highlighting the broad effectiveness of these second-generation style controls with regards to limiting households’ rent increases. The largest landlords (>100 properties) applied lower average rent increases in rent-controlled areas, were twice as likely to price at the rent cap, but much less likely to apply large increases compared to smaller landlords. Our findings highlight the need to account for landlord heterogeneity and market structure when designing rent control regulations and tailoring enforcement mechanisms. High-quality property-level data are crucial for evaluating policy effectiveness and uncovering nuanced pricing patterns that aggregate indicators may obscure.