The interrelationship between house prices and mortgage credit has been one of the more compelling issues to warrant attention after the recent financial crisis. Considerable financial innovation and liberalisation of wholesale international funding markets over the past 20 years greatly...

Understanding the true scale of the difficulties in the Irish mortgage market is of key importance from a financial stability, fiscal and social perspective. To date, much of the analysis and discussion of the Irish market has tended to focus on either the concept of mortgage repayment distress...

This paper uses loan-level data from the residential mortgage books of four Irish credit institutions, as at December 2010. The focus of the paper, is to provide an overview of the structure and condition of these housing loan books. This includes a description of borrower categories, interest...

The rapid increase in credit in an economy is now commonly perceived to be one of the leading in- dicators of financial instability. This view has been reinforced by the aftermath of the international financial crisis, which commenced in mid-2007. A key policy response has been to focus on the...

Amongst the many housing markets across the OECD presently experiencing difficulties, the Irish case stands out. Between 2004 and 2007, a significant house price bubble emerged in Ireland, while the real economy was enjoying persistently strong growth rates. The sharp decline in house prices...