{"id":238203,"date":"2025-12-17T22:10:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T22:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/238203\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T22:10:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T22:10:10","slug":"irish-mortgage-arrears-fall-again-to-lowest-level-since-2009-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/238203\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish mortgage arrears fall again to lowest level since 2009 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Mortgages on 23,779 family homes were in arrears of more than 90 days at the end of September, according to Central Bank data published on Wednesday, as the rate of arrears fell to a post-crash low.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Just 3.4 per cent of all principal home mortgage accounts were in arrears in the three months to the end of September, down from 3.5 per cent the previous quarter. That had been the lowest level since the outset of the Irish property crash in 2009. Arrears peaked at almost 13 per cent in 2013. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">At the end of the month, almost three-quarters of all mortgages in arrears for more than 90 days were held by non-banks. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">If mortgages with arrears of less than 90 days are included, some 37 per cent were held by banks. That is unchanged from the second quarter of the year and down 1 percentage point in annual terms, the Central Bank said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Overall, the number of mortgage accounts in arrears dropped by 14 per cent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The number of accounts in long-term arrears \u2013 defined as being more than a year behind in payments \u2013 was 17,657, or 2.5 per cent of the total. This represents an 11 per cent decrease compared with September 2024, according to the data. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/business\/2025\/12\/17\/house-price-inflation-at-73-in-october-as-demand-outstrips-supply\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">House price inflation at 7.3% in October as demand outstrips supplyOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The third quarter of 2025 marked the sixth consecutive period in which arrears declined, the Central Bank said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">At the end of September, there were 698,933 residential mortgages held against principal private homes, with a total outstanding balance of \u20ac107 billion. Around 36,106 of these were in arrears, the Central Bank said, a fall of 3.3 per cent from the second quarter of the year. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In the buy-to-let market, 6,301 mortgages \u2013 almost 13 per cent of the 49,212 investment mortgages outstanding \u2013 was in arrears. Of those, 5,131 were in arrears of more than 90 days with 4,469 more than a year behind in payments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Arrears in the investment mortgage sector were up 2.5 per cent over the quarter but down 21 per cent year-on-year.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"c-image audio_image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1754647931518-c07d65db-55b5-463e-ae51-976300c5837e.jpeg\"\/>Why are apartments in Ireland so much more expensive to build than houses?<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The decline in mortgage arrears has been helped by the strength of the Irish economy in recent years and rising house prices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In an analysis note on Wednesday, Davy Stockbrokers economist Kevin Timoney said the risks to the Irish economy are tilted to the upside, despite global uncertainty and the threat of external shocks. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThe Irish economy has been beset with challenges since the global financial crisis. Most modelling of shocks to the economy has provided stark estimates of the likely pathway ahead,\u201d Mr Timoney said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cHowever, the economy has proven consistently more resilient than expected. With new domestic policies for housing and infrastructure primed to take effect, we now believe that risks to the consensus are tilted to the upside.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In its latest medium-term economic outlook, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) last week highlighted the economy\u2019s \u201cremarkable performance\u201d over the past decade while warning of three potential shock scenarios that could derail it in the years ahead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The think-tank warned that a sudden slowdown in demand for Irish exports linked to changes in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/united-states\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/united-states\" target=\"_blank\">United States<\/a> trade policy or a global recession would have a \u201csevere impact\u201d on the economy here. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mortgages on 23,779 family homes were in arrears of more than 90 days at the end of September,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[79,632,28197,24077,179,18,19,17,20097,9650],"class_list":{"0":"post-238203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-central-bank","10":"tag-davy-group","11":"tag-economic-social-research-institute-esri","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-mortgage","17":"tag-mortgages"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115737200472945361","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}