Lending to first-time buyers accounts for around one-fifth of total new mortgage lending and is almost matched by the amount of lending to residential investors, a new survey of the mortgage market has revealed.

The survey, which is produced jointly by the Irish Bankers Federation (IBF) and Pricewaterhouse-Coopers (PwC), also shows that mortgage lending grew annually by 20 per cent in the second quarter of this year and that over one-third of new mortgage lending is unrelated to house purchases.

Some 53,449 new mortgages, with a value of €10.13 billion, were approved in the first half of the year, according to the survey. The share of lending going towards topping up or replacing existing mortgages was 32 per cent, equally divided between both categories. The balance, which works out at some €6.4 billion, went towards house purchases.

First-time buyers account for 21 per cent of all residential mortgage funds advanced. Excluding funds borrowed for top-ups or remortgaging, they accounted for 30.9 per cent of the funds advanced for house purchases. Residential property investors accounted for 19 per cent of all funds and for 27.9 per cent of funds advanced for house purchases. House movers were the largest group of borrowers, accounting for 28 per cent and 41 per cent under both categories, respectively.

The average size of a loan to first-time buyers in the second quarter of 2006 was €227,454. According to the latest Permanent TSB / ESRI survey, first-time buyers spent €268,508 on their property purchases, implying that they contributed around €40,000 of the price from personal resources.

IBF chief executive Pat Farrell said that the results of the first survey pointed to an active market for switching mortgages. He added that the survey would provide additional information for lenders and policy makers and was developed to examine equity withdrawal.

"That's on our agenda for the future. The question is how to collect the data. We first need to do some qualitative research on this area," he said

At present the survey's category of lending for topping up mortgages captures those who remortgage their existing property without measuring the extent of its increase in value.

But according to Mr Farrell lending in this category was related to recent strong increases in property prices. "Its obvious that property values will have increased significantly. [ Borrowers] will typically apply that to a variety of purchases."