Welcome to the Mortgage123 First Time Buyers' Guide to Mortgages. With the mountain of information floating around on first time buyers, it can be difficult to wrap your head around the subject.
Guides, news, and tips to help you navigate the Irish mortgage market with confidence from expert brokers.
Your income is the engine behind every mortgage repayment. So what happens if illness or injury stops it? Here's how income protection keeps your home and your plans safe.
By the Mortgage123 team · 14 Jan 2026
Welcome to the Mortgage123 First Time Buyers' Guide to Mortgages. With the mountain of information floating around on first time buyers, it can be difficult to wrap your head around the subject.
It can be confusing to know what housing schemes in Ireland are available or if you are eligible for them.
The First Home Scheme is part of the Government’s Housing for All Plan 2030 , Affordable Housing Act, 2021. In 2021, 2 new affordable purchase schemes were announced. A local authority scheme (operated by your local council) and a national scheme (First Home Affordable Purchase Shared Equity Scheme) which was launched the 7th of July 2022.
The tracker mortgage scandal has been going on for nearly 12 years. It rekindled in 2019 with banks getting heavy penalties for overcharging customers. However, further cases are still being investigated. This is the scandal that just keeps giving – Permanent TSB recently admitted that another 200 customers were wrongly denied tracker mortgages. It comes three years after the bank was fined €21m by the Central Bank over its treatment of tracker mortgage customers.
Put simply, repayment capacity is your ability to demonstrate that you can pay a mortgage. Lenders want to ensure that you, as a borrower, will be able to make your planned repayments. Repayment capacity is different to affordability which is calculated as income and outgoings. Both repayment capacity and affordability are equally important in getting a mortgage.
The long-term mortgage rates revolution started almost a year ago, with the launch of Avant Money’s ‘One Mortgage’. This product offering introduced a suite of long-term fixed rates in May 2021, including the first ever 30-year fixed rate mortgage in the Irish market.
Getting a mortgage with bad credit is possible, but it can be harder. Irish lenders are very unforgiving about adverse information on your credit file. Firstly, your credit file is a register of any credit you may have from credit cards, loans, and even monthly insurance on your car. If you are considering getting a mortgage, it is very important to maintain a good credit rating.
Buying a home can be an exhilarating yet daunting experience. No property will be perfect on all fronts, so there are many considerations buyers should keep in mind when viewing a property for the first time.
With mortgage rates as low as 1.95%, many people are looking to switch mortgage providers in Ireland. Even more, a new mortgage lender Avant Money entered the Irish mortgage market in Sept 2020 with 7-year fixed rates as low as 1.95%**. This is the lowest rate currently available in the Irish mortgage market, and no surprise in Jan 2021 the company revealed it has received €200m in new mortgage applications.