The following are the key figures from the Mortgage Drawdowns Report for Q4 2019:
- 12,259 new mortgages to the value of €2,768 million were drawn down by borrowers during the fourth quarter of 2019.
- This represents an increase of 1.2% in volume and 5% in value on the corresponding fourth quarter of 2018.
- It also represents an increase of 3.9% in volume and 4.9% in value compared with the previous quarter (Q3 2019).
- First-time buyers (FTBs) remained the single largest segment by volume (52%) and by value (53%).
Quarterly Drawdown Activity
In addition, BPFI also published today the latest figures from the BPFI Mortgage Approvals Report for December 2019. The following are the key elements:
- A total of 2,964 mortgages were approved in December 2019 – some 1,531 were for FTBs (51.7% of total volume) while mover purchasers accounted for 763 (25.7%).
- The number of mortgages approved rose by 1.9% year-on-year but fell by 29.1% compared with the previous month. This reflects the seasonal trends generally seen at this time of year (in the past four years, approval volumes have dropped by 28-30% between November and December).
- Mortgages approved in December 2019 were valued at €696 million – of which FTBs accounted for €362 million (52%) and €204 million by mover purchasers (29.4%).
- The value of mortgage approvals rose by 6.1% year-on-year but fell by 27.5% month-on-month – again due to seasonal factors.
As the following chart shows, annualised mortgage approval activity to end-December 2019 increased – doing so in volume terms by 0.11% compared with the twelve months ending November 2019.
Annualised Mortgage Approvals
The BPFI Mortgage Drawdowns and Mortgage Approvals reports are attached above can be viewed on the BPFI website here.
