Your back garden could be the best-performing asset you own.
There's a quiet shift in Irish property most people haven't done the maths on yet.
Draft planning rules brought to Cabinet in April 2026 would, if enacted, let you place a self-contained 32–45 m² home in your rear garden with no full planning permission. And under the Rent-a-Room scheme, the rent it earns you, up to €14,000 a year, could be exempt from income tax, USC and PRSI.
For a homeowner with a usable garden and some capital, that's not a renovation. It's an income stream parked between the kitchen window and the back fence.
Let's do it properly, the honest version is more persuasive than the hyped one
Let a fully-fitted, compliant Ériu unit to a single tenant or couple at €1,150 a month and that's €13,800 a year, just under the €14,000 Rent-a-Room ceiling.
If that income qualifies under the scheme, the saving versus taxed rental income, for a higher-rate taxpayer, is roughly:
- ~€5,500 income tax
- ~€1,100 USC
- ~€550 PRSI
Your actual yield is simply €13,800 ÷ your all-in installed cost, and the payback is the inverse, so the figure is only honest once it's run against a real quote for your site. We model your exact yield and payback for you, with every cost line shown. The regulations are still in draft and not yet enacted; Rent-a-Room treatment depends on the unit being linked to your principal house's services and on your individual circumstances; the final enacted wording could differ. Confirm the tax position with a qualified accountant before relying on any projected return.
We'd rather you went in clear-eyed than excited and wrong.
The reason the yield is this strong is the entry price
The 20ft Expandable starts at €25,000 delivered and reaches a fully-fitted, rentable, BER-A2 home at a fraction of the €110,000–€180,000 an Irish-built equivalent costs. The yield maths that follows is simply a function of that.
It's possible because our founder has sourced direct from the Henan factories since 2008 and inspects every unit in person. Factory-direct, not corner-cut: same compliance, same A2 BER, and the same 30-year anti-corrosion warranty, given by the factory and carried by Ériu, so the cover is held here in Ireland.
What a serious investor needs to know, told straight
RTA carve-out is proposed, not certain
The draft regulations propose to carve the auxiliary dwelling out of the Residential Tenancies Acts, so RTB registration and rent-pressure-zone rules would not apply. That's a genuine operational advantage over a conventional rental if enacted as drafted. Treat it as proposed, not certain.
LPT and insurance
The unit is expected to receive its own LPT band separate from your house, and your home insurance must be updated to declare the structure, or you risk invalidating cover on the principal house. Most insurers quote an uplift rather than a separate policy.
Mortgage and resale
Most Irish lenders will not currently mortgage a property with a second self-contained dwelling on the same title, which has resale and portability implications. Many investors fund the unit through other finance specifically to ring-fence the house mortgage.
We provide a written LPT, insurance and mortgage briefing with every quote, and recommend your solicitor reviews it. Full detail on the financial and legal treatment is here.
An income stream is only as good as its legality
Every Ériu unit is specified to Building Regulations (TGD Parts A–M), supplied BER-ready to A2, and delivered with a full compliance pack and a path through the Commencement Notice and BER assessment. A unit that isn't lawfully occupiable can't be lawfully let, so the compliance is part of the investment case.
See exactly what that involves →Get your site reviewed and your yield modelled.
Send us your site, county and target spec. We'll come back with a factory-direct quote, your specific yield breakdown, and the LPT/insurance/finance briefing. Direct reply from Noel within 24 hours.
Request your quote + yield breakdown →