Interest rates on new mortgages increased again in January reaching the highest levels seen in over three years, new figures from the Central Bank shows.
In January, mortgage interest rates increased by 0.24% compared to December and 0.17% compared to January 2022 bringing the rate up to 2.93%. The last time the rate was this high was in October 2019.
However, interest rates on new mortgages in Ireland remain lower than the EU average of 3.16% and among the lowest in the euro area just behind Malta and France.
In October 2019, Ireland had some of the highest rates in Europe, just behind Greece. However, since then other European countries have since seen dramatic increases in their own rates.
Latvia now has the highest interest rates for new mortgages in the EU at 5.09% followed by Estonia and Lithuania at 4.89% and 4.69% respectively.
Rates on new fixed-rate mortgages averaged out at 2.82% in January which account for 92% of all new mortgage agreements. The total volume of fixed-rate mortgages agreements came to €693m with variable-rate mortgages totalling €61m.
In January, the total volume of new mortgage agreements came to €755m down from the €1.25bn recorded in December. However it is up from the €530m recorded in January 2022.
The volume of renegotiated mortgages came to €365m during the month.
On consumer loans, interest rates fell by 0.39% to 7.40% with the total volume reaching €229 million — up 20% year-on-year. Household overnight deposit interest rates stood at 0.03% while interest rates with agreed maturity rose to 0.71% in January.
Next week, the ECB are set to meet again and are expected to raise interest rates by another 0.5% bringing the total increase since last July up to 3.5%.
