Dublin’s top earning Airbnb property is now pulling in €230,000 a year from short-term lets. New figures from aggregator AirDNA show no decline in listings on the platform despite Government plans to restrict its use through new regulations.

Last October the Government sought to tighten the rules around short-term lettings in a bid to boost housing supply. It announced new rules that would require hosts of entire properties on platforms such as Airbnb to seek planning permission to let their properties for three months or more in a year.

The new rules, which are due to come into effect on June 1st, appear to have had little impact so far to restrict the growth of short-term rentals in Dublin.

Figures from AirDNA show that the Dublin Airbnb market is worth about €10 million a month in the low season, rising to almost €17 million during the summer. This would pitch annual revenues collected by Airbnb landlords at about €120 million to €200 million a year.

The AirDNA figures are not official and so need to be treated with caution.

The median monthly revenue is currently €1,997 for an entire property or €880 for a room, falling to €1,143 for the lowest earners, and rising to €4,664 for the top 10 per cent of earners. Revenue for this top cohort reached a peak of €6,249 a month during the summer of 2018.

Top properties

While Airbnb said its average Irish host earned about €3,500 a year in 2017, figures from AirDNA show that the earnings for the top properties in Dublin can be significantly more.

The biggest earner, with estimated revenues of about €230,000 a year, is a six-bedroom townhouse close to St Stephen’s Green in Dublin’s city centre, which can accommodate 15 people. It had an average daily rate of €1,000, according to AirDNA. The figures suggest that the townhouse is booked for about 230 nights a year, or almost eight months.

Dublin has an overall occupancy rate of about 61 per cent.

A seven-bedroom property in Portobello is another significant earner, also bringing in more than €200,000 a year.

Many of the properties earning the most money on the site are targeting groups, and are in fact a number of apartments linked together. For example, the second most lucrative “property”, which brings in about €218,000 a year, consists of five separate units in the same apartment building in Temple Bar. With accommodation for 16 and an average daily rate of €1,010 (or €62.50 per person), it would appear to be popular with students and hen parties, based on comments.

Lucrative let

Similarly, another lucrative let, with annual revenue of €206,622 a year, is a four-apartment unit in Dún Laoghaire, which can also accommodate 16 people, It has an average nightly rate of €629, or less than €40 per guest if fully occupied.

A seven-bedroom property in Portobello, Dublin, bringing in more than €200,000 a year.

The figures also show no decline since the Government announced the restrictions last October. According to AirDNA, there were about 6,228 active rentals in Dublin on the platform in December, up by 1.4 per cent on the same period in 2017.

And many of the listings are for apartments or houses rather than a room in a shared house. According to AirDNA about 3,000, or 58 per cent of all listings, are for entire properties.