Age of first-time buyer rises to 34 as time in parental home lengthens

The average age of the first-time buyer has risen to 34, as demand and lack of house completions also raised house prices.

The average age of a first-time home buyer has risen to 34 amid the housing shortages and new supply will take at the end of 2024 at the earliest to help matters, the head of the banking industry group has said. 

Supply shortages have also meant the age of leaving the parental home has risen to over 28 years and prices appear to be close to matching the levels of 2007, said Brian Hayes at the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland.

Mr Hayes warned that its pre-pandemic estimate for new housing completions to reach 30,000 a year by the end of 2022 would not now be achieved "until at least the end of 2024”.

“The mismatch between current demand, as well as pent-up demand, and the supply of new homes seems to have brought average sale prices relatively close to the peak of the previous cycle in 2007 in terms of sale prices."  

"While the gap between current demand and supply had been narrowing before the pandemic, the delayed response in supply is creating latent demand for future years,” Mr Hayes said. Economists and estate agency chiefs have told the Irish Examiner that house prices could rise by an average of 5% this year.

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Meanwhile, industry group Brokers Ireland said it remained unclear why Irish banks were charging home borrowers among the highest mortgage rates in the eurozone. Rachel McGovern, director at Brokers Ireland, said the banking industry has identified capital reserves and the legacy costs of banking in Ireland as reasons for costly mortgages. 

“However, the Central Bank has recently indicated that the higher capital reserves required account for about 0.5% to the interest rate. That raises the question as to what exactly is responsible for the remaining 1.04% over and above the euro area average that Irish mortgage holders must pay," she said.