New figures from Home Building Finance Ireland show it has grown total loan approvals to €2.7 billion at the end of December 2024, an increase of 61% on the €1.66 billion at the end of 2023.
At the end of December 2024, HBFI which is the State entity that lends to housebuilders to build more homes, had approved funding for 13,186 new homes in 184 developments across 23 counties.
HBFI's 2024 performance update, published today, shows 47% of HBFI-funded homes are for owner-occupiers, 40% for social/affordable housing, 4% Part V and 9% for renters.
The report also shows there were over €1 billion new approvals in 2024 - more than double the level approved in 2023 (€1.01 billion compared to €408m).
The company began with initial funding capacity of €730m, made available by the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF), six years ago.
This pot of money is recycled as early loans are repaid, freeing up capacity for new lending, with loan approvals now at €2.7 billion.
However, housing starts in the first ten months of 2024 more than doubled compared with the same period of 2023 but its unclear what proportion will be completed this year.
The official figure of 30,330 homes built last year saw the Government miss its target of building 33,000 homes as set out under the Housing for All plan.
And it fell short of the predictions by the then Housing MInister Darragh O'Brien and then Taoiseach Simon Harris that 40,000 would be built.
HBFI chief executive Dara Deering said: "We continued to make a valuable contribution to accelerating Ireland’s housing supply meaning to date we have funded over 13,000 new homes in 23 counties for owner-occupiers, renters and people who need social or affordable housing".
"By offering an expanded range of products, we saw a significant increase in our new loan approvals to over €1 billionn over the course of the year when commencement activity across the market was also really strong," she said.
"We’re recycling capital to leverage the impact of the capital at our disposal to lend to small, medium and large housebuilding companies to improve supply as much as we can. We will continue to engage with the market and our wider stakeholders to identify and respond to emerging funding gaps to support the delivery of much needed new homes," she added.
The HBFI, which commenced operations in January 2019, was set up by the Government to fund the delivery of new homes.
It is a private company with its own Board operating on a commercial basis, wholly owned by the Minister for Finance and is subject to State Aid rules and audited by the Comptroller & Auditor General.
