New figures from Banking and Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) show that 5,433 mortgages were approved last November, up 1.6% on the previous month, and 9.6% on November 2021.
First time buyers accounted for over 46% of the approvals, while mover purchasers made up over 21%.
The value of mortgage approvals in November hit almost €1.5 billion, up 2.5% on October, and almost 17% higher than the same time the previous year.
First time buyers accounted for €699 million, while mover purchasers for €359 million.
Today's figures show that non-purchase mortgage activity, which includes switching and top-ups, grew by 64.4% year on year in volume terms to 1,647 and by 93.3% year on year in value terms to €425 million.
"Our latest mortgage figures show that in November 2022 approvals activity increased both in value and volume terms, however it should be noted that much of this was driven by switching," said Brian Hayes, Chief Executive of BPFI.
The BPFI figures show that almost 55,000 mortgages were approved in the year to November 2022, valued at almost €14.9 billion.
"These are the highest levels since our data series began in 2011 and up from 49,479 mortgages valued at €12.4 billion in the same period of 2021," Mr Hayes said.
"While first-time buyers remain the largest segment in the mortgage market with approvals valued at some €7.1 billion in the year to November, increased switching activity is largely driving the rate of growth, with volumes up by 73% year-on-year to more than 16,000, as customers continue to seek out new deals to minimise the impact of ECB interest rate decisions," he added.
Mr Hayes said they expect to see the healthy pipeline in approvals reflected in strong drawdown figures in the final quarter of last year, particularly in value terms.
