Average Irish mortgage approval values rose to a record of more than €319,000 in April, new figures from the banking industry reveal, as house prices continued to climb, requiring property owners to take on higher levels of debt.
The Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) said on Friday that lenders approved 4,705 home loans in the month, an increase of 4.7 per cent from March and 5.8 per cent from the same month last year.
The total value of mortgage approvals in the Republic was €1.5 billion, a sharp 13.6 per cent higher than April 2024, the banking lobby group said.
It meant that the average value of a mortgage approved in the month was €319,143, the highest monthly level since the BPFI’s records began in 2011.
The average value of a first-time-buyer mortgage approved in April also hit a record €330,123, up by more than 8 per cent over 12 months.
First-time buyers accounted for €965 million of the total value of mortgages approved in April, or 61 per cent.
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“We can see from today’s figures that lenders are supporting more and more first-time buyers, which points to a healthy pipeline for lending in the coming months,” said BPFI chief executive Brian Hayes.
“However, first-time buyer housing demand is also growing, as evidenced by the 14,554 applications for Help to Buy in the first three months of 2025. This is up from 9,991 in the same period of 2024.”
House prices in Ireland grew at an average annual rate of 7.5 per cent in March, according to the most recent Central Statistics Office figures, as continuing supply shortages, Government incentives to buy, and expectations of further interest rate cuts continued to fuel demand.
The median or middle price paid for a home in the 12 months to March was €362,500.
Property prices nationally have increased by 161.6 per cent from their trough in early 2013.
Meanwhile, amid a shortage of second-hand properties for sale, the BPFI said mover-purchase mortgage approvals fell by 5.9 per cent in the 12 months to the end of April but were up 0.7 per cent in value terms.
BPFI figures published in April revealed that the average value of mortgage drawdowns also hit a record of almost €328,000 in the first three months of the year amid soaring demand and low levels of supply.
This was driven by a 9.6 per cent annual rise in loans on second-hand properties to €370,790.
The Government is targeting the delivery of 303,000 new homes by 2030, starting with 41,000 homes this year and rising incrementally to 60,000 homes a year by 2030.
However, the Central Bank, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and other bodies are forecasting supply to fall well short of those targets this year and next.
