Steady growth in mortgage approvals continued in January – BPFI
January saw the first year-on-year decline in first-time buyer approval volumes since June 2024, new figures from Banking & Payments Federation Ireland show today.
Today’s figures show that a total of 3,395 mortgages were approved in January 2025, down by 5.5% on a monthly basis but up by 4.1% compared to the same time last year.
First-time buyers were approved for 1,947 mortgages – 57.3% of the total volume – while mover purchasers accounted for 737 (21.7%).
Mortgages approved in January were valued at €1.020 billion, a drop of 7.5% from December but a jump of 10.9% on January 2023.
First-time buyers accounted for €610m (59.9%) and mover purchasers for €252m (24.7%), BPFI noted.
Meanwhile, re-mortgage/switching activity rose by 28.1% in volume terms year-on-year and by 44.5% in value.
“While approvals activity tends to be weakest between December and February, it’s encouraging to see continued year-on-year growth in volumes which points to a healthy pipeline for mortgage drawdowns in the months ahead,” Brian Hayes, the chief executive of BPFI said.
“While approval activity grew in most segments, January saw the first year-on-year decline in first-time buyer (FTB) approval volumes since June 2024,” Mr Hayes said.
“In annualised terms, FTB volumes dropped to their second highest level since the series began at 31,452 while the value of those approvals reached a new high of almost €9.7 billion,” he said.
“Growth in mover purchase lending boosted activity in the home purchase/self-build segment, which, at 42,521, reached its highest annualised volume since the twelve months ending September 2021,” he added.
Article Source – Steady growth in mortgage approvals continued in January – BPFI – RTE
