Mortgage approvals rose in July
There was a sharp rise in the number of people approved for a mortgage last month compared with the previous month.
Close to 3,400 buyers were approved for a home loan, a rise of 51pc on the figures for June.
But this was still down 30pc on the number approved for a mortgage in July last year, according to the latest figures from the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland.
More than half of the number and value of approvals went to first-time buyers.
Mortgages approved in July were valued at €811m – of which first-time buyers accounted for €462m.
Not all approvals turn into mortgage drawdowns as often potential buyers are outbid, or they may have multiple approvals from different lenders in place and only draw down one of these.
Chief economist at the Banking Federation Ali Ugur said: “With the reopening of the economy we have seen a significant increase in mortgage approval numbers in July compared to the previous month, however on a year-on-year basis, approval numbers are still down which is not unexpected.”
He said that there were 40,090 mortgage approvals in the 12 months ending in July, valued at €9.238bn.
Dr Ugur said annualised mortgage approved figures are a better indicator of the trend.
Annualised mortgage approval activity to end of July decreased in volume terms by 4.1pc compared with the 12 months ending in June.
This was a decrease in value terms of 3.7pc over the same period, he said.
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