Ireland's biggest residential landlord is hoping to make an acquisition in the first half of this year with a joint investment partner as the listed company sees liquidity and appetite returning to the Irish residential sector.

Irish Residential Properties REIT, which has about 3,600 homes, announced strong preliminary full-year results, with adjusted net earnings up 7.4% to €32.8M, while its net rental income was €66.7M, a 1.9% increase. Pretax profit was €49.8M as it benefited from a €17M revaluation gain.

Much to the company’s frustration, its share price continues to trade at around €1.05, well below its net asset value per share of almost €1.32.

However, CEO Eddie Byrne told Bisnow that with new legislation on rent caps coming into force from 1 March, he is keen to get moving on acquisitions.

Byrne said one of the issues the investment market has had for the last two to three years is lack of supply. But that is changing.

“Nobody's selling anything, because the yield expectation is too wide, the gap is too wide between buyer and seller,” he said.

But now the pipeline of transactions expected in the first half of 2026 is two or three times as long as it would have been in October or November, he said, with a significant increase in liquidity.

“All of that leads us to think there are going to be opportunities in the next few months, and the key ingredient for us is the capital to be able to play,” Byrne said.

For IRES REIT, that means looking at investment partners, because despite reestablishing the landlord on a firm financial basis, the discount to NAV means the company’s ambitions are hamstrung — listed companies can very rarely raise shares at a discount to NAV.

“While we're still trading at the discount, even though our share price is up 15% or 16% year to date, it is still significant, and our option to play is with strategic partners or, in other words, core capital — typically, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, the guys who are looking for very low-risk, steady returns,” he said. “They weren't a feature of the Irish market at all in the last four years because of the rent rate caps.”

But Byrne said the company has been in active conversations and has had very strong feedback on the appetite to invest in Ireland and the private rented sector in 2026, initially in income-producing standing stock.

Byrne said there is serious appetite among investors, and the next stage will be to generate a transaction.

“We know all the potential sellers in the market, so what we want to be able to do is bring a transaction back to potential strategic partners and say, ‘Look, we are having discussions with the seller and we can negotiate an exclusivity period,’” he said.

The company is targeting the first half of this year, subject to suitable assets coming to market.

While the new rent regulations come into play on 1 March, Byrne said the company had been preparing for their introduction since late last year, and the new rules are already impacting leasing strategy.

“We are effectively already preleasing for the new regulations, because when somebody gives us notice, typically it’s anywhere between 30 and 90 days, so from December, we were able to lease starting 1 March,” he said.

“The legislation is going through, and that's really positive, because I think there was a lot of scepticism as to whether the state would follow through, and they have.”