Home Building Finance Ireland raises €200m from Danske Bank to increase lending capacity 

HBFI has been able to amplify its initial credit line to generate a much higher level of approved funding, by recycling loans as they are repaid from the sale of completed homes.

HBFI chief executive Dara Deering said this new facility will 'allow us to fund even more homes and to continue to play a supporting role in alleviating Ireland’s supply shortage'. 

Home Building Finance Ireland (HBFI) has announced that it has been able to increase its capacity by 27%, following an agreement with Danske Bank to provide a €200m facility.

The new €200m facility will add to HBFI’s existing €730m facility with the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF). This is the first time the organisation has raised market funding to complement State funding which it has relied on to date.

HBFI was established by the Government in order to fund the delivery of new homes. The legislation establishing it gives it the power to raise up to €750m in market funding.

HBFI chief executive Dara Deering said it has decided that now is the right time to borrow from the market, “as we continue to increase the number of housebuilding firms we support”.

This new facility will allow us to fund even more homes and to continue to play a supporting role in alleviating Ireland’s supply shortage.” 

HBFI said this extra capacity will help fund a growing pipeline of homebuilding projects — particularly among small and medium-sized enterprise housebuilders.

HBFI said it has used its existing ISIF facility to approve €3bn in funding for more than 15,000 new homes in over 200 developments in 25 counties throughout Ireland.

It has been able to amplify its initial credit line to generate a much higher level of approved funding, by recycling loans as they are repaid from the sale of completed homes. This allows it to use repayments from earlier loans to fund new facilities with new borrowers.

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Danske Bank’s country manager for Ireland, Alistair Welch, said this facility, when added to HBFI's existing funding, “will be used to add extra capacity to fund a pipeline of homebuilding projects, demonstrating HBFI’s commitment to providing additional funding to support homebuilders across Ireland”.

HBFI commenced operations at the end of January 2019. It is a private company with its own board operating on a commercial basis, wholly owned by the minister for finance.