The number of mortgages approved rose by over a third in May compared to the same month a year earlier, new figures show
Data from Banking and Payments Federation Ireland reveal there were 4,124 approvals valued at a combined €884 million granted during May. This compares with 3,046 approvals and a value of €609 million for May 2016.
This is equivalent to a 34.5 per cent increase in volume terms and a 45.1 per cent rise in value terms.
The average purchase approval in May was €228,505, up 7.7 per cent year-on-year.
First-time buyer approval volumes increased by 45.8 per cent year-on-year to 2,148 while the value of such approvals rose 60.7per cent to €448 million.
The average first-time buyer approval was up 10.2 per cent to €208,389.
Overall, there were 3,557 purchase mortgage approvals in May, which were valued at €796 million. Mover purchase approval volumes were up by 26.9 per cent to 1,242. The average mover purchase approval rose by 6.6 per cent versus the prior year to €263,296.
Residential investment letting approval volumes increased by 1.8 per cent compared to May 2016 to 167.
Remortgage or switching mortgage approval volumes jumped 34.8 per cent year-on-year to 314 while the number of top-up approvals rose by 28.4 per cent to 253.
Remortgage approval values were up 26.3 per cent to €66 million while the value of top-up approvals jumped 31.8 per cent to €23 million.
Investec economist Ronan Dunphy forecast new mortgage lending would rise 24 per cent this year to €7 billion, up from €5.7 billion in 2016.
“Strong growth in mortgage lending is a positive for all domestic banks given that such loans are being written at much stronger margins than back book lending,” he said.
Davy economist David McNamara, who forecast €7.5 billion in gross lending for 2017, said over the longer term he expects the mortgage market to more than double from last year to €12.8 billion by 2020.
