A big percentage of our private landlords became accidental Landlords during the property crash.
They purchased Buy to Let properties in the height of the boom at exuberant prices and as soon as the property market slowed in 2008 and eventually collapsed and as rents plummeted especially away from Dublin they were no longer able to sustain their repayments and selling the property was not an option as the prices had fell far below what they now owed on the property. In the past 2 to 3 years depending on what part of the country you are in these owners now saw a light gleaming towards their exit from being a Landlord when their property now was no longer in negative equity and they could sell and pay off their mortgage.
After speaking and dealing with many of these so called accidental landlords their main reason for the delight of leaving this venture behind was that they could not deal with or afford to have so many trouble tenants Many Landlord were vulnerable and not aware of the risks associated with been a Landlord. They also were not financially strong enough to deal with problems that would arise from having tenants in these properties