Average monthly rent across 26 Irish counties - ML ready dataset
Dataset Description
🏠 Irish Rent Dataset
Overview
This dataset contains average monthly rent prices across Ireland, sourced from the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) - the official Irish government body for private rental registrations.
📊 Dataset Statistics
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Time Period | 2020 H1 - 2025 H1 (5.5 years) |
| Total Rows (Full) | 50,208 |
| Total Rows (Specific) | 22,484 |
| Counties Covered | 26 (All of Ireland) |
| Unique Locations | 446 |
| Average Rent | €1,306.51/month |
| Median Rent | €1,200.43/month |
| Dublin Avg Rent | €1,831.13/month |
| Non-Dublin Avg | €1,023.44/month |
📁 Files
processed/irish_rent_full.csv (50,208 rows)
Complete dataset including aggregated categories ("All bedrooms", "All property types").
Best for: Exploratory data analysis, visualizations, overview statistics
processed/irish_rent_specific.csv (22,484 rows)
Filtered to specific bedroom counts and property types only.
Best for: Machine Learning models, regression, classification tasks
processed/irish_rent_by_county.csv (286 rows)
County-level average rents aggregated over time.
Best for: Time series analysis, regional trend comparisons
🔢 Features
Target Variable
| Feature | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
rent_euro |
float | Average monthly rent in EUR |
Time Features
| Feature | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
year |
int | Year (2020-2025) |
half |
int | Half-year (1 or 2) |
half_year |
string | Combined format (e.g., "2020H1") |
time_period |
int | Ordinal time index (1-11) |
Location Features
| Feature | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
county |
string | Irish county (26 unique) |
province |
string | Irish province (Leinster, Munster, Connacht, Ulster) |
area |
string | Town or neighborhood name |
location |
string | Full location string |
Property Features
| Feature | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
property_type |
string | Apartment, Detached/Semi-detached/Terrace house, Other flats |
bedrooms |
string | Bedroom category (One/Two/Three/Four+ bed) |
bedrooms_num |
float | Numeric bedroom count |
Boolean Flags
| Feature | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
is_dublin |
bool | Dublin county (True/False) |
is_city |
bool | Major city location (True/False) |
is_county_aggregate |
bool | County-level aggregate data (True/False) |
🎯 ML Baseline Results
Using the irish_rent_specific.csv dataset with Random Forest Regressor:
| Metric | Score |
|---|---|
| R² Score | 0.8557 |
| Mean Absolute Error | €130.50 |
Feature Importance
is_dublin- 57.67% (Location is key!)bedrooms_encoded- 11.73%property_encoded- 11.23%county_encoded- 11.16%year- 6.49%is_city- 1.12%half- 0.61%
💡 Suggested ML Tasks
- Rent Price Prediction - Predict rent based on location, property type, bedrooms
- Time Series Forecasting - Forecast future rent trends by county
- Regional Analysis - Compare and cluster counties by rent patterns
- Classification - Predict if a rental is above/below median price
- Anomaly Detection - Find unusually priced rentals
📈 Key Insights
- 🏙️ Dublin Premium: Dublin rents are ~80% higher than the rest of Ireland
- 📍 Location is Everything: The
is_dublinflag alone explains 57% of variance - 📊 Steady Growth: Rents have increased consistently from 2020-2025
- 🏠 Property Type Matters: Apartments have different pricing than houses
🔗 Data Source
- Provider: Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) Ireland
- Website: https://www.rtb.ie/
- Data Type: Official government statistics on private rental market
- Update Frequency: Half-yearly (H1 = Jan-Jun, H2 = Jul-Dec)
📋 Usage Example
import pandas as pd
# Load the ML-ready dataset
df = pd.read_csv('processed/irish_rent_specific.csv')
# Quick EDA
print(df['rent_euro'].describe())
print(df.groupby('county')['rent_euro'].mean().sort_values(ascending=False))
# Prepare for ML
X = df[['year', 'county', 'property_type', 'bedrooms_num', 'is_dublin']]
y = df['rent_euro']
📜 License
This dataset is derived from publicly available RTB data under Irish Open Data principles.
Created with ❤️ for the Data Science community
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