Mortgage Rates Ireland

It appears - according to bits in the press - that AIB are not really interested in mortgage switchers at the moment and Bank of Ireland will only consider them if the LTV is under 50%. They are keeping the money for the first time buyers or second time buyers.

If you believe the panic merchants in the Independent - you’d think it was a major crisis. Headlines like “Thousands at risk of rate hikes as AIB bars mortgage switchers”

According to Central Bank statistics - the total number of outstanding residential mortgages in Ireland at the end of September 2009 was 791,634.
The total amount outstanding was €78.6 Billion Euro.
That equates to just under €100,000 per mortgage account.

An accurate breakdown of how many people are on tracker mortgages and how many are on standard variable rates is hard to find .

The Irish Independent on Jan 28 2010 wrote that

“statistics compiled by a leading lender, which did not want to be named, show there are about 350,000 people with standard variable rate mortgages. Trackers account for between 140,000 and 200,000 of all mortgages. ”
The same article stated that “Between 80,000 and 100,000 people have fixed-rate mortgages, the figures show. This means that standard variable rate mortgages represent around 56pc of the market.”

So based on those figures - if there are 200,000 trackers and 100,000 fixed rate loands - that leaves 491,000. borrowers who must be on variable rate mortgages.

The same newspaper in Oct 2008 quotes Frank Conway, director of the Irish Mortgage Corporation who said “Since tracker mortgages were introduced about six years ago, anywhere from 350,000 to 400,000 tracker mortgages were taken up by Irish homeowners”.

If this figure is true - and there are also about 100,000 on fixed rates - then the total on standard variable rates will be around 291,000

EBS are still taking on mortgage switchers - and offering a fee free option too. The rates at EBS range from 2.55% variable to 4.2% for a 5 year fixed rate mortgage. For anyone on variable rates over 4% - now is probably your last chance to switch lenders.

KBC will also take on switchers from other lenders . They are offering up to €1000 towards legal fees (min loan €75k) Variable and fixed rates available. See all the Best Mortgage Rates Compared Here

The market share of mortgages in Ireland is broken down roughly as follows;
PTSB 19%
boi 18%
aib 18%
Ulster/ First Active 14%
ebs 10%
kbc 9%
Halifax 6%
nib 3%
Nationwide 2%