Goodbody Stockbrokers has predicted that the mortgage arrears problem for homeowners will peak next year.
A new report from the Ballsbridge-based stockbrokers also revealed that it could be another three years before the numbers in arrears on their home loans begin to drop.
They also insist that arrears in the buy-to-let market will continue to worsen for some time to come.
At present 169,000 mortgage account holders are not making full repayments on their loans with 77,630 of these three months or more behind on repayments. In total one in five residential mortgages are in trouble.
Analysts for Goodbody’s Eamonn Hughes and Dermot O’Leary estimate in a new report that residential mortgage arrears will stop rising in the first half of next year.
The number of home mortgages that are in arrears will then fall back in 2014 and 2015 but the number will not start to fall rapidly until 2016.
Goodbody’s also said that almost a third of the 150,000 buy-to-let mortgages are either in arrears or have had to have their repayments lowered. The firm insist it will take longer for this problem to peak.
"While we believe that arrears on the owner-occupier book will peak in the first half of 2013, in our view the peak in the buy-to-let sector will come later," the stockbroking firm said in a report.
The report points out that the domestic banks have put €6.4bn aside to cover losses on mortgages, but had only written off €251m of mortgage debt by 2010.
