A mortgage market profile - compiled by the Irish Banking Federation and PricewaterhouseCoopers - showed that 12,189 new mortgages worth just over €2 billion were issued in the three months.
The number of mortgages was down 56.4% from the same period last year, and also down almost 4% from the second quarter of this year.
The value of the mortgages was more than 62% lower than in the same period last year.
But the figures showed that the number of mortgages issued to first-time buyers - while still well down from a year earlier - rose for the second quarter in a row. First-time buyers now account for almost 30% of the mortgage market.
Mortgages for investment continue to decline, and now account for 5.7% of the market.
