Quiet time down at the branch
Submitted by admin on Mon, 02/23/2009 - 12:21
By David Clerkin Markets Correspondent
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Bank branches approved an average of just over one first time buyer mortgage per month in the last three months of last year.
Figures from the Irish Banking Federation (IBF) show that just under 4,000 first-time buyer mortgages, worth a total of €895 million, were issued in the last quarter of 2008.
The last quarter of 2008 also saw just 3,437 mortgages issued to customers who were moving house - the equivalent of one customer per branch per month. This was a 75 per cent drop on the number recorded in the last three months of 2005.
Investor loans also collapsed in the last quarter, with just 2,020 such loans issued - the equivalent of two such loans per branch during the quarter. This compared with almost 7,500 in the same quarter three years ago.