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 paper examines how landlord size interacts with rent control regulations to shape rent-setting behaviour in Ireland. Using a novel annual property-level dataset covering over 334,000 tenancy registrations from 2022 to 2024, both the magnitude and timing of price adjustments in rent-controlled and non-rent-controlled areas are studied. Despite rising average market rent levels, individual property-level rent increases were moderate, with 60% of rents unchanged year-on-year. Rent-controlled areas experienced lower increases, especially at tenant turnover where rents rose 9–10 percentage points less than in non-controlled areas, highlighting the broad effectiveness of this second-generation control in limiting households’ rent increases. The largest landlords (100+ properties) applied lower increases in rent-controlled areas, were twice as likely to price at the cap, but less likely to impose large hikes than smaller landlords. These 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.