The rental crisis is rumbling on.

Yet throughout the country, and especially in Cork, there are thousands of unoccupied bedrooms that have the potential to earn some real income for householders.

Now a nationwide campaign has been launched by Cork-based home-renting platform HomeHak, who say if they can get even ten percent of the households with two or more spare bedrooms to rent them out, then this would put a roof over the heads of 80,000 people looking to rent, while allowing these homeowners earn up to €14,000 tax-free in the process.

HomeHak says it offers a “people-centric” alternative to the dominant property advertising websites. The website allows organised prospective tenants, homeowners, landlords and letting agents to upload their profiles to a secure central database, where people can make informed decisions about who they rent from and who they invite into their home or rental property.

1.2 million unoccupied bedrooms

A new analysis of Census 2022 data by the company has revealed that there are at least 787,000 homes in Ireland with at least one spare bedroom, which equates to 1.2 million unoccupied bedrooms every night in the country.

“In Dublin City and County where there are 518k households in total, we found that 175k (34 percent) of households had one or more spare bedrooms equating to approx. 250,000 spare bedrooms,” said Pat Drinan, founder and CEO of HomeHak.

In Cork City and County, the figure came to 139,000 spare bedrooms. At least 110,000 homes in Ireland (six percent) have three bedrooms unoccupied or about 330,000 unoccupied bedrooms.

“We are calling on these homeowners to consider renting out these rooms, for a period of six months or more – and make considerable tax-free income for themselves in the process,” Drinan added.

“Many homeowners simply don’t know about the tax break that is the rent-a-room relief, which lets people earn up to €14,000 per year tax-free if they rent out a room in their home to private tenants.

“There is an urgent, bona fide need for accommodation in this country. People come from all over Ireland, and other parts of the world, to fill roles in our health or education systems, IT and pharma industries, or to study and we must do a better job at securing places for them to live.

“When they cannot find homes, these essential workers, talented labour force and students are forced to leave and move to places where they can put a roof over their heads. In addition, there are many of our citizens who struggle to afford high rents or who rely on HAP or other supports. They need better accommodation options and a better process for renting their homes.”