New figures show that 3,607 new mortgages worth €639m were issued in the final three months of last year.
The number of mortgages was down 31.4% from a year earlier, but up almost 7% compared with the third quarter, according to the figures from Irish Banking Federation and PwC.
For 2011 as a whole, 14,273 new mortgages worth €2.46 billion were issued. Both figures were almost half the figures for 2010.
The number of mortgages has now risen for three quarters in a row, the first time this has happened since 2005.
The value of mortgages was down almost 35% from a year earlier, but up 2.6% from the third quarter.
First-time buyers accounted for 49% of new mortgages in the fourth quarter, the highest percentage since the figures were first compiled in 2005.
“Three successive quarters of growth provide the first tentative signs that the market may be stabilising," said IBF chief executive Pat Farrell. But he said it was still too early to view this as an indicator of recovery, as the fourth quarter was usually a strong quarter.
Brokers' group PIBA described the quarterly rise in mortgage lending as "unremarkable given the very dramatic drop of 94% that has taken place in lending since 2006".
PIBA's Rachel Doyle said brokers were still reporting a very high rate of rejection for mortgage applications, some as high as 80%.
