Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) has today published the latest figures from the BPFI Mortgage Approvals Report for August 2023. The following are the key elements:
- A total of 4,534 mortgages were approved in August 2023 – first-time buyers (FTBs) were approved for 2,829 mortgages (62.4% of total volume) while mover purchasers accounted for 1,029 (22.7%).
- The number of mortgages approved fell by 4.5% month-on-month and by 18.2% compared with the same period last year.
- Mortgages approved in August were valued at €1,302 million – of which FTBs accounted for €820 million (62.9%) and mover purchasers for €346 million (26.5%).
- The value of mortgage approvals fell by 3.9% month-on-month and fell by 14.2% year-on-year.
- Re-mortgage/switching activity fell by 79.4% in volume terms year-on-year and by 81.7% in value in the same period.
Speaking on the publication of the data, Ali Uğur, Chief Economist for BPFI stated: “Our latest figures show that first-time buyer (FTB) mortgage approvals grew strongly on a year-on-year basis in August 2023 with volumes up 14.1% to 2,829 and values up 21.8% to €820 million. Approvals activity for FTB mortgages usually peaks between May and July so it’s not surprising to see approvals fall from the historical highs in May 2023. While FTBs accounted for over 62% of approval volume in August, mover purchasers accounted 22.7% with over 1,000 mover purchase mortgages for the fourth month in a row.”
“FTBs continue to dominate the market with FTB mortgage approval values reaching more than €8.5 billion in the twelve months ending August 2023, while the annualised number of FTB mortgage approvals exceeded 30,000 (30,103) for the first time since our data series began in 2011. This suggests that the pipeline for home purchase drawdowns remains very strong despite an overall slowdown, largely due to the significant drop off in switching activity in recent months, with a decrease of over 79% in switching volumes seen year-on-year to the end of August 2023.”
