Post-neoliberalization and the Irish private rental sector

Financializing Through Crisis? Student Housing and Studentification During the Covid‐19 Pandemic and Beyond

“…All‐in‐all, there has been remarkably little medium‐term impact on the PBSA sector, echoing Byrne's (2021) observations regarding the wider PRS. The result, for university cities, is a continuing – if not accelerating – trend of ‘finance‐driven new‐build studentification’ (Revington & August 2020), as the PBSA sector simultaneously pulls students from HMO and grows its presence via university partnerships.…”

“…There has been relatively less attention to how financialization has evolved – or, more precisely, how financialized landlords' strategies have adapted – due to the pandemic. While Byrne (2021, p. 1) finds that in the private rental sector (PRS) in Europe and English‐speaking countries, the ‘market outlook is overwhelmingly optimistic’ despite the pandemic's uncertainties, Brill et al . (2022) highlight three strategies adopted by firms in the United Kingdom's build‐to‐rent (BTR) sector to maintain the viability of this asset class in the face of a negative ‘demand shock.’ They find that the BTR sector has, first, lobbied for a favourable political environment; second, adopted more flexible payment plans or rent reductions to avoid vacancies or non‐payment, thereby protecting income; and third, reoriented towards housing a ‘reserve army’ of ‘key workers’ predominantly employed by the state with secure yet modest incomes (e.g.…”

Housing and the West Cork islands: a national crisis in microcosm

“…Although Byrne (2022) signals the emergence of a partial decommodification of housing through national level regulation of the private rental sector (including longer statutory tenancy lengths, increased length of notice periods, and specific grounds for terminations), these are not being felt on the islands where many tenants do not have formal leases. Furthermore, these reforms are insufficient as tenants across Ireland continue to lack security of tenure and 'tenancy termination continues to be the main cause of family homelessness' (ibid, p. 11).…”

“…In recent decades, the right to adequate housing has become increasingly challenged by the well-documented housing crises in Ireland and many other countries (Lee et al, 2022). It is recognised that these crises have arisen largely as a result of the application of neoliberal principles to housing (Byrne, 2022), and the commodification (Marcuse & Keating, 2006;Dewilde, 2017), financialisation (Rolnik, 2013;Dewilde, 2018;Lima et al, 2023) and 'marketisation of housing' (Hearne, 2020, p. 2;Norris, 2016). This results in housing being seen as a commodity, investment, or speculative opportunity which, according to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing (Farha, 2017, p. 3), 'disconnects housing from its social function' or as 'a home meeting a fundamental social need' (Hearne, 2020, p. 2).…”

“…In Ireland, the housing system is now characterised by falling homeownership levels and a growing proportion of renters (including older renters: Slaymaker et al, 2022;Byrne, 2022). According to data from the census in 2022 (CSO, 2023a), more than 330,000 homes were rented from a private landlord in 2022 and '[t]here was a significant increase in the number of households with people aged 65 and over renting from a private landlord to almost 17,000 households, up 83% since 2016'.…”