The embassy said that rents in Ireland are currently “much more expensive than in Paris”.
The French Embassy in Ireland has issued a warning to those planning to relocate to Ireland about the country’s “severe housing crisis”.
In a section on its website providing French people with advice on living in Ireland, it notes that new arrivals – including students – face “significant difficulties” in finding accommodation.
“The strong demand and the saturation of the rental market have led to a sharp increase in rents,” it said, before stating that rents in Ireland are currently “much more expensive than in Paris”.
As such, it advised people planning to settle in Ireland to allow sufficient time to search for accommodation and said that this process can take several weeks.
Also, on the website, the embassy urged people to be vigilant of accommodation scams.
“The ministry also calls for great vigilance in the face of the risk of scams on the various ad sites and invites you not to sign a contract or pay a deposit without having previously visited the accommodation and met the owner/real estate agency,” it stated.
“It is essential to have solid financial guarantees and, if possible, certificates of payment of rent from your previous owners (“reference letter”) in order to be able to present a rental file.”
The warning from the embassy comes as the average price of residential properties in Ireland has exceeded its highest level recorded at the peak of the economic boom in April 2007 by 0.8%
The figures come from the Residential Property Price Index (RPPI) for July 2022, released by the Central Statistics Office on Wednesday.
The index also shows that property prices shot up by 13% in the 12 months to July of this year, with prices in Dublin rising by 10.4% and outside the capital up by 15.2%
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