This publication is categorised as a CSO Frontier Series Output. Particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this release as it may use new methods which are under development and/or data sources which may be incomplete, for example new administrative data sources. For further information on the data sources, linking procedures and limitations of this report, see the Background and Methodology section.
Note - both the Central Bank of Ireland and Banking and Payments Federation Ireland provide figures on the number of mortgage drawdowns and will differ to the figures presented here, due to amongst other reasons, differences in the covered population.
Extensive coherence testing was carried out over the period 2016-2021 which found all three sources to be highly correlated in terms of counts of mortgages, but also a high degree of agreement regarding regional representativeness across the different sources.
The number of dwellings purchased rose from 19,300 in 2010 to 46,420 by 2021.
Of the 46,420 dwellings purchased in 2021, it was estimated that 29,060 or 62.6% involved a mortgage in the property transaction.
This proportion was at its lowest in 2013 at 43.7% and highest in 2019 at 64.7%. See Figure 1.1 below.
South Dublin was the Local Authority with the largest proportion of mortgaged transactions in 2021, at 76.5%. This was followed by Fingal (73.8%) and Kildare (73.6%).
In contrast, Donegal had the lowest proportion of mortgaged transactions at 34.6%. See Table 1.1 for more information. This may partially be explained by the higher than average proportion of purchasers who provide a location outside of the State at the time of the purchase (primarily Northern Ireland as was noted in previous publications in this series).
In 2021, the median price of a residential dwelling was €280,000.
Dwellings purchased with a mortgage had a median price paid of €309,000 compared with €220,000 for those without a mortgage, a difference of €89,000. See Figure 1.2 below.
The highest median prices for purchasers with a mortgage were in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown (€610,000), Wicklow (€400,000) and Dublin City (€395,000). These areas also had some of the highest median prices for buyers without a mortgage at €560,000 in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, €380,000 in Dublin City and €355,000 in Fingal.
Donegal and Longford had the lowest median price for buyers with a mortgage at €160,000 and €162,500 in 2021, respectively. Longford and Roscommon had the lowest median price for purchasers without a mortgage at €110,000.
In 2021, Dublin City had the smallest median price difference between a mortgage and non-mortgage transaction, at €15,000. This was followed by Kildare and South Dublin were the difference stood at €20,000 and €27,000, respectively. See Map 1.1 and 1.2 for further information.
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