Residential Mortgage Arrears and Repossessions Statistics: Q1 2015

Residential Mortgage Arrears and Repossessions Statistics: Q1 2015
The number of mortgage accounts for principal dwelling houses (PDH) in arrears continued to fall in Q1 2015 marking seven consecutive quarters of decline. A total of 104,693 (13.8 per cent) of accounts were in arrears at end-Q1, a decline of 5.1 per cent relative to Q4.

PDH mortgage accounts in arrears over 90 days continued to fall during Q1. The number of accounts in arrears over 90 days at end-March was 74,395 (9.8 per cent of total), reflecting a quarter-on-quarter decline of 5.5 per cent. This represents the sixth consecutive decline in the number of PDH accounts in arrears over 90 days.

Despite the fall in arrears over 90 days, the number of PDH accounts in arrears over 720 days continues to rise. However, the pace of increase in this category has reduced significantly in recent quarters, with an increase of just 155 accounts in Q1 2015, compared to an increase of 1,729 accounts in Q1 of the previous year.

Some 117,263 PDH mortgage accounts were classified as restructured at end-March, reflecting a quarter-on-quarter increase of 2.3 per cent. Of these restructured accounts, 85.1 per cent were deemed to be meeting the terms of their current restructure arrangement. The largest increase in restructures were again recorded in the categories of split mortgage and arrears capitalisation.

Buy-to-let (BTL) mortgage accounts in arrears over 90 days decreased by 5.9 per cent during the first quarter of the year. This quarter-on-quarter decrease was reflected across all categories of arrears, albeit a far more marginal decrease was recorded in the over 720 days category. At end-March, there were 15,361 BTL accounts in arrears over 720 days, with an outstanding balance of €4.7 billion equivalent to 17.5 per cent of the total outstanding balance on all BTL mortgage accounts.

Non-bank lenders now hold almost 46,000 mortgage accounts for PDH and BTL combined. Of this number, 19,818 are in arrears of more than 90 days.

Source : Central Bank 04/06/2015