Shortage of rental properties adds to Mayo housing woes

MAYO is facing a housing crisis as we have never seen before, with an acute shortage of homes available to rent.

On daft.ie yesterday (Monday) there were just in the region of 30 plus homes available to rent in the entire county.

Director of services Tom Gilligan described the situation in the county as a 'perfect storm' - we already have a housing crisis, there's Covid-19, and now we have the defective concrete blocks issue.

It was a crisis we have never seen before, he told a meeting of Mayo County Council.

Normally, there would be over 100 properties to rent in Mayo.

It is a problem for the entire county, he told councillors, and it is something they are going to have to address very quickly. However, they could only solve some of the problems at council level. Much of it will have to be tackled as a very significant national issue.

Ballinrobe-based Councillor Michael Burke told the meeting how he had put up a property for rent at the weekend and within 24 hours he received 25 enquiries. The calls came from all over Mayo, right into Galway, from people looking for accommodation.

Someone doing up a house to rent it out on a personal basis, they end up giving 50% of it away to the government, so that's not an incentive, he stated. There should be a capital write-down on the building against their taxation.