Irish mortgage rates fell again in October to hit their lowest rate since May 2023, new figures from the Central Bank show today.
New mortgage rates here fell to 4.03% in October, down slightly from 4.08% in September and down from 4.27% in October of last year.
Ireland had the sixth highest interest mortgage rate in the euro zone in October for the fourth month in a row.
Today's figures show that the average euro zone mortgage rate also fell in October to stand at 3.52%.
Rates continued to vary hugely across the euro zone area from a rate as low as 1.77% in Malta to as high of 4.89% in Latvia.
Today's Central Bank figures also show that the total volume of new mortgage agreements increased from €930m in September to €1.1 billion in October.
This marked a 16% increase in monthly terms and a 28% rise from October 2023.
Meanwhile, the average fixed deposit rate remained largely unchanged at 2.64%, slightly below the euro zone average of 2.73%.
The level of new business in this category was €1.5 billion - the highest volume since January 2021 and a 21% increase from the previous month and a 10% increase from October last year, the Central Bank said.
The European Central Bank is expected to cut euro zone interest rates again tomorrow, with most expecting a rate cut of 25 basis points.
Daragh Cassidy, Head of Communications at Bonkers.ie, said the ECB is likely to continue to cut rates into next year as long as inflation remains under control and its key policy rate could potentially fall to close to 2% from 3.25% right now.
He said this will feed through into even lower mortgage rates in Ireland over the coming months.
"Tracker customers will benefit the most. But so too will the so-called mortgage prisoners whose loans were sold to vulture funds and some of whom are still paying extortionate variable rates as high as 7% or more right now," Mr Cassidy said.
But he also pointed out that there are losers to falling interest rates too and deposit rates are likely to start falling too.
Irish households currently have almost €160 billion resting on deposit.
Mr Cassidy said the majority of this money is still in accounts that pay little to no interest.
"I'd really encourage people with savings to lock into the higher rates while they're still available," he added.
