Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

Indicative data available to the Department also shows that first-time buyers continue to have a significant presence in the housing market. This is supported by the CSO quarterly national household survey for the third quarter of last year, which indicates that almost 50% of house purchasers since 1996 were first-time buyers. The survey also pointed out that some 62% of homeowners surveyed had no mortgage or loans on their dwellings compared to 58.8% some six years ago. While the survey indicates that the majority of these homeowners purchased some 20 years ago, it states that approximately a quarter of the purchasers in the past eight years had no mortgage.

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