The number of first-time buyer (FTB) mortgage drawdowns rose by 5.4% in 2025 to 27,652, the highest volumes in almost 20 years, valued at \u20ac8.8bn.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The latest Mortgage Market Profile Report H2 2025, published by the Banking & Payments Federation Ireland, showed faster growth in FTB mortgages on new properties. The date showed Cork is now responsible for 13% of Ireland’s entire first time buyer mortgage market.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In Cork, more than half (53%) of all FTB mortgages were secured on new builds in 2025. First time buyers purchasing or building new properties accounted for 44% of all home mortgages in Cork in the second half of 2025. First time buyers purchasing existing properties made up 35% of Cork home mortgages. Movers buying new homes accounting for 7% and movers buying existing homes accounting for 14%.<\/p>\n
New properties accounted for only 26% of FTB mortgages in Dublin in 2025. The new property share of FTB mortgages in Kerry\/Clare\/Tipperary at 36%, while in the South-East it stood at 39%.<\/p>\n
FTBs on new properties accounted for 28% of home mortgages in Limerick in the second half of 2025. Buying existing properties accounted for 53% of the home mortgage market in Limerick over the period, the highest proportion of any region.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Overall, the average home (FTB and mover) mortgage value reached new peaks in 2025, with the median FTB mortgage value up by about \u20ac80,000 (34%) from 2021 to about \u20ac316,000 in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s report shows that 2025 was a strong year for FTB mortgage activity right across the country, while mover activity weakened in every region,” said BPFI chief economist Ali Ugur.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Wicklow was the fastest growing region for FTBs, with FTB mortgage volumes jumping by 54% between 2021 and 2025, while volumes in Dublin were up 26% and by 30% in Cork over the same period. By contrast, each region recorded a decline in mover purchase volumes between 2021 and 2025 with Limerick, Meath and the West all showing a decline of more than 20% in mover volumes.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the average FTB mortgage on a new property in 2025 reached \u20ac337,000, the average value of an FTB mortgage on a second-hand property exceeded \u20ac300,000 for the first time, at \u20ac307,729.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The number of first-time buyer (FTB) mortgage drawdowns rose by 5.4% in 2025 to 27,652, the highest volumes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,5367,43],"class_list":["post-495402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ireland-markets-irish-economy-iseq-stocks-shares","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}