Was it easier for first-time buyers 20 years ago? You could certainly buy a home of your own at a younger age then. There were more properties for sale in 2006 too and banks were lending more to buy them.That’s why many people aged 50 now were able to become homeowners then – the average age of first-time buyers in 2006 was about 29. If you were one of them, maybe you’ve traded up to a second or third home since, maybe you’re mortgage free. Or maybe it didn’t turn out that way. For most 29-year-olds these days, owning a home is the stuff of fairytales. So what’s changed in 20 years? The winding up of Nama this month, formed by the Government in 2009 to rescue the domestic banking sector from collapse, was a reminder of a crash that changed not only how much you could borrow but triggered a freeze on the construction of new homes. Buyers now are feeling the ripple effects. AgeMeet Mary. She bought her first home in Dublin city in 2006, aged 29. As a solo buyer, borrowing €350,000 was no problem back then. Apart from some payslips and a letter from HR, her bank didn’t ask for much more. In fact, her employer even invited a mortgage broker on site, offering a special staff mortgage rate, discounted legal fees included. She could literally get a mortgage on her lunch break. Mary bought a two-bed apartment, a 25-minute walk from Grafton Street, paying a pre-crash premium of €400,000. It was a big loan for a single income, but no one batted an eyelid. Mary’s friends were buying homes too. Some bought two. So was Mary a marvel? To today’s young people, still living with their parents to age 27, she looks like one. The average age of first-time buyers is now “unfortunately” 38 or 39, Michael Stanley, the chief executive of Cairn Homes, Ireland’s largest private home developer, told investors this year. Mary was 10 years into home ownership at that age. It’s no wonder many young people these days feel that, by comparison, their lives are on hold. Easy moneySome things haven’t changed. House prices were high in relative terms 20 years ago too. Asking prices at the Celtic Tiger peak were 8 per cent higher than now, according to Daft.ie figures published in June. The CSO gives a different slant. Dublin residential property prices are 10 per cent higher now than their February 2007 peak, while residential property prices in the rest of Ireland are 29.2 per cent higher than their May 2007 peak, according to figures for May 2026. But no matter, it was easier for Mary and her contemporaries to borrow what they needed. Her mortgage was more than 4.3 times her €80,000 income.“Typically, three times salary was the norm then, but in reality, particularly from 2004 onwards, there was this huge drive among banks to grow their loan books,” says Michael Dowling of Irish Mortgage Brokers.Bank executives were rewarded based on increased share price.“I remember getting six and seven times income for borrowers at times, and it wasn’t unusual,” says Dowling.[ First-time buyers with two incomes still priced out of market, SCSI study findsOpens in new window ]A mortgage where the monthly repayment was 35 per cent of net income had been the banking rule of thumb in the 1990s, he recalls, but aggressive lending and lax regulation meant this was breached.So, yes, young people could more easily buy a home 20 years ago than today, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.“In some cases, people were spending 60 per cent of their net disposable income on their mortgage,” says Dowling. “There was certainly no requirement to prove repayment capacity, and a lot of loans weren’t stress-tested,” says Trevor Grant a director of Affinity Advisors and chairman of the Association of Irish Mortgage Advisors Central Bank mortgage lending rules, introduced in 2015, are significant in curtailing how much can be borrowed today. You can’t borrow interest-only on your home now – and when you look back, it was an absolutely ridiculous concept— Trevor GrantFirst-time buyers are limited to four times income. They can borrow a maximum of 90 per cent of the purchase price, needing at least a 10 per cent deposit. There are limited exceptions, though these are growing.“The criteria for an exception is quite significant. A lot of underwriting goes on to make sure the applicant is suitable,” says Grant.On her income of €80,000, Mary would be able to borrow €320,000 today, considerably less than the five and six times income once offered. Free moneyWhat if you could buy a home without a deposit? Buyers today need at least 10 per cent of the purchase price to get a mortgage. To purchase at Dublin’s current median house price, that’s €50,000. It’s no wonder the average age of buyers is nudging 40.But cast your mind back to 2006 and 100 per cent mortgages were a thing. “It wasn’t unusual for people to borrow 100 per cent finance, and then to knock on the door of the credit union and say, ‘Can I have a €10,000 loan to furnish the property?’ It was no doubt easier to get finance,” says Dowling.Interest-only mortgages for family homes were offered too, he says. Lower monthly repayments to own your own home sounds great – except you still owe the full principal at the end of the term.[ What would happen if Ireland followed Vienna by designing housing with women in mind?Opens in new window ]A lot of people took out an interest-only mortgage for the duration of the term, he recalls.“Their view was, when I’m 65 or 70, I’ll sell the house and downsize. That was sold to people as a good idea, but we are dealing with the consequences of it 17 years later when you consider there are still over 5,000 people more than 10 years in arrears on their mortgage and some of those would be interest-only mortgages,” he says.“You can’t borrow interest-only on your home now – and when you look back, it was an absolutely ridiculous concept,” says Grant. UnderwritingApply for a mortgage today and expect a thorough grilling. A chunky car loan, an online shopping habit, a flutter at the bookies, or a penchant for a Friday night takeaway – loan underwriters want to know everything.Mary didn’t have to worry as much about that. Some of her friends could even borrow for a buy-to-let property too, meaning they were servicing two mortgages. “Not only was there lax lending but the underwriting process was quite lax. It allowed people to borrow more than they should. The whole system was driven by growth, and more lending,” says Dowling.First-time buyers these days are living like monks and have their mortgage broker on speed dial. It’s not enough to just save money, they have to be careful about spending too. Six months of bank statements need to signal a lifestyle near ascetic by 2006 standards. It’s harder to borrow now, but that could be saving young buyers the heartbreak of some of their elders. [ Everyone agrees Irish house prices are overvalued. We’re in risky territoryOpens in new window ]Loose lending meant they could borrow big – but if a loss of income squeezed repayment capacity and forced you to sell, the crash in house prices provided no escape from the debt. Negative equity became a reality for many.The number of homes in negative equity peaked at 39.1 per cent, or 320,000 mortgages, in the final quarter of 2012, according to Central Bank figures. Home mortgages in arrears of more than 90 days peaked at more than one in 10, or 13 per cent, in 2013. “With the benefit of hindsight, it was way too easy to get a mortgage pre-crash,” says Grant. Mary and her contemporaries may have bought their homes when younger, but the looser Celtic Tiger lending practices didn’t serve many of them well. Mary and others found themselves stuck until house prices recovered, unable to sell because negative equity meant they could not repay their loans. Some became accidental landlords, renting their first homes to buyers trying to get a foot on the ladder after them. Innovations?‘I don’t know what a tracker mortgage is, but I got one.’If you remember that TV ad, you remember the era of easy borrowing. Released in 2007, it was part of a financial regulator’s campaign to educate people on their consumer rights. Tracker mortgages were introduced here in the early 2000s by Bank of Scotland, with other banks following. The interest rate is pegged to the main European Central Bank rate, with a fixed additional margin applied by the lender. When the cost of bank borrowing began to soar in 2007, trackers became loss-making for banks. The banks pulled them from the market in 2008 and took drastic measures to reduce their exposure on outstanding trackers. Homeowners paid the price. [ There have been 46 housing tax measures since 2013 - and still the crisis rolls onOpens in new window ]An inquiry found that seven firms, including AIB and its EBS unit, Bank of Ireland, Ulster Bank, KBC Bank Ireland, Permanent TSB and its former sub-prime lending unit Springboard, were in breach of regulations. More than 41,000 borrowers were unfairly denied their right to a tracker rate, or were put on the wrong rate. Some borrowers were overcharged, some ran into financial trouble and 327 properties were lost – 98 of which were family homes. SupplySomething certainly in buyers’ favour back in 2006 was housing supply.Ireland built a phenomenal 90,000 new homes that year, says Dowling. The quality of that building in some cases is, however, another story. By contrast, just 36,284 new dwelling completions were recorded in 2025, according to the CSO. “There is a huge number of mortgage applicants today, mostly driven by first-time buyers. The challenge is they are struggling to find property and you now also have an affordability issue,” says Grant. “There aren’t remotely as many properties available as there were.“When I look back, it wasn’t so much that property was cheaper then, because prices are now higher than they were at their peak in most areas, but they definitely have it harder now. The supply simply isn’t there.”The supply of second-hand homes was also much better 20 years ago, says Dowling. [ Most of Ireland’s big targets on housing, infrastructure and families are stuff of fictionOpens in new window ]“In a mature, active mortgage market, you should have between 3 and 5 per cent of the second-hand stock up for sale at any one time, but in Ireland now, it’s 0.6 to 0.8 per cent,” he says. People aren’t moving because they can’t afford to – house prices and lending restrictions are constraining them, so they are staying put and renovating instead, continuing the cycle of low supply of second-hand homes and high prices. The median price of a home in Dublin is now €500,000 according to CSO figures for the year to May. Even in the least expensive areas – Dublin city and Fingal, the median price is €480,000. Things aren’t much better in the commuter belt. Outside Dublin, the most expensive region over the past 12 months was Wicklow, with a median price of €470,000. In second place was Kildare, which had a median price of €447,876.There are now Government schemes to help first-time buyers that didn’t exist in the boom, but the rules can be quite restrictive. To qualify for the Help to Buy (HTB) scheme in Dublin, the property must be a newbuild, it must cost €500,000 or less and buyers must be taking out a mortgage of at least 70 per cent of the purchase price. The maximum grant is capped at 10 per cent of the property value or €30,000, whichever is the lower. Someone like Mary, a 29-year-old solo buyer, is unlikely to be able to buy as close to Dublin city again today. With affordable newbuilds in such short supply, Government assistance won’t solve it either. She might be lucky to nab a newbuild one-bed apartment in Clonburris, Dublin 22, now for sale from €290,000, about 16km from the city centre. Some are also for sale in Swords, Donabate, Cherrywood, or in Leopardstown, about 14km out, priced from €410,000.“We are a long way from supply meeting demand and because of the high level of mortgage approvals we are seeing now, its going to be a long time before we see prices fall,” says Grant, “unless there is a crash.”