There was a decline in the number of mortgages approved by Ireland's main banks in May compared to the same time last year.
That’s according to the latest figures from Banking and Payments Federation Ireland which show that there was a fall of 10.3% in approvals for first-time buyers throughout the month.
The BPFI said that this was in part due to May 2023 being a particularly strong month.
The number of mover purchaser mortgage approvals was also down by more than 5% in May.
The latest BPFI figures show that a total of 4,559 mortgages were approved in May 2024, with first-time buyers approved for 2,844 mortgages (62.4% of total volume) and mover purchasers accounting for 980 (21.5%).
The number of mortgages approved rose by 2.5% month-on-month but fell by 7.5% compared with the same month last year.
Mortgages approved in May were valued at €1.365 billion, of which FTBs accounted for €861m (63.1%) and mover purchasers for €358m (26.2%).
Meanwhile, the value of mortgage approvals rose by 3.3% on a monthly basis and fell by 2.2% on an annual basis.
BPFI noted that re-mortgage/switching activity rose by 1.2% in volume terms year-on-year but decreased by 3.3% in value.
"Our latest report shows that there were 4,599 mortgage approvals valued at almost €1.4 billion in May 2024, which means that activity levels remain at historically high levels, with more than 49,100 mortgages valued at more than €14.1 billion in the 12 months ending May 2024", Brian Hayes, the chief executive of BPFI, said.
"The three months between May and July is a key period for mortgage approvals, traditionally accounting for 28-30% of approvals during the year, so we would expect to see strong approval activity for the next couple of months," he added.
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