The Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) has today published the latest figures from the BPFI Mortgage Approvals Report for October 2021.

The following are the key figures:

• A total of 4,568 mortgages were approved in October 2021 – some 2,533 were for FTBs (55.5%) of total volume) while mover purchasers accounted for 1,076 (23.6%).
• The number of mortgages approved in October fell by 4.2% month-on-month and by 12.3% year-on-year.
• Mortgages approved in October 2021 were valued at €1,188 million – of which FTBs accounted for €656 million (55.2%) and €327 million by mover purchasers (27.5%).
• The value of mortgage approvals fell by 1.4% month-on-month and were down 5.2% year-on-year.
• Annualised mortgage approval activity to end-October 2021 decreased in volume terms by 1.18% compared with the twelve months ending September 2021 and decreased in value terms by 0.48% over the same period.

Speaking on the publication of the data, Brian Hayes, Chief Executive, BPFI said: “While our latest mortgage figures show a slowdown in approvals on a month-on-month and a year-on-year basis, it’s important that we look at this this in the context of figures for 2020 which didn’t follow the traditional seasonality of mortgage approvals due to the upheaval caused by Covid-19. It is also worth noting that these October 2021 figures were also the second highest levels of approvals volumes and values for the month of October since the data series began in 2011.”

“Looking ahead, the fourth quarter of the year is generally the strongest quarter for mortgage drawdowns and with a strong pipeline of mortgage approvals the outlook is very positive for a strong end to the year.”

BPFI