Housing


An illustration of a partially drawn house with leaves growing from the ground and the BER A-G scale beside the house.
An illustration of a partially drawn house with leaves growing from the ground and the BER A-G scale beside the house.

Bank of Ireland plays a key role in Ireland’s housing market by supporting both the people who need homes and the builders who deliver them. As one of the country’s leading mortgage providers, we help thousands of people to buy a home each year, and we’re currently financing the construction of approximately 25,000 new homes nationwide.

For homebuyers, we offer a range of supports to make purchasing a home more accessible. Our EcoSaver mortgage – the first in the Irish market to link fixed rate pricing to a home’s BER – rewards customers as their energy efficiency improves. First time buyers can build their deposit through our MortgageSaver account, which provides a bonus when they take out a home loan. And our mortgage cashback offer provides support with the upfront costs of moving into a new home.

On the supply side, our debt and equity finance enable large scale residential development, with available funding of €2.5 billion, of which €1 billion is designated specifically for social and affordable projects.


€35bn

In Irish mortgages (at end H1 2025)

€2.5bn

In finance available for homebuilders

€700m

In finance supporting 7,000 student beds

[10,000+]

People helped to buy a home every year

c. 25,000

New homes being supported with Bank of Ireland finance

46%

Of homes purchased via First Home Scheme are BOI customers

A photograph of staff at a building site for Priory Fields, Skerries, County Dublin. They are all wearing hi-vis jackets and hard hats. A green excavator digger is visible in the background.

Bank of Ireland is also a leading funder of purpose built student accommodation (PBSA) in Ireland, with over €700 million in finance now supporting the development and operation of over 7,000 student beds across the country, helping to ease pressure on the wider housing market.

While Bank of Ireland is a significant source of finance, international institutional capital is also a vital part of the overall funding mix. We continue to champion investment in Ireland, acting as a trusted and reliable partner for global investors.

Housing supply remains a national priority – and one of ours too. Although many challenges sit outside the private sector’s control, finance is a critical part of the solution. Bank of Ireland will continue to play its part and keep looking for ways to do more.

Sustainable Lending

In a first for the Irish market, Bank of Ireland completely redesigned its fixed-rate mortgage offering during 2024 to align with Building Energy Ratings (BER). Our EcoSaver mortgage means our fixed-rate mortgage pricing is now based on the energy efficiency of a property rather than the loan-to-value ratio typically used in the Irish market.

EcoSaver gives both new and existing customers a range of tiered discounts for all properties with a building energy rating from A to G, with the interest rate reducing the more energy efficient a home is. Once a customer has an EcoSaver mortgage, they can still benefit from energy upgrades carried out on their home as their mortgage interest rate comes down as their BER improves.

We also offer green home improvement loans designed to support energy efficiency upgrades, specifically aimed at homeowners undertaking works that will improve their BER rating or reduce energy consumption.

These loans can also be combined with the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) Home Energy Upgrade Scheme and other Government backed incentives, allowing homeowners to benefit from both lower cost finance and available grants.

How we are supporting

New lending product to support homeowners trading down

Recognising the challenges for homeowners who wish to move to a home better suited to their needs, Bank of Ireland is piloting a new lending product to support homeowners trading down. Available to all homeowners whether they are existing Bank of Ireland customers or not, this product will launch early in the first quarter of 2026.

We are also exploring other product innovation focused on supporting expanding families to trade up to a larger property.

First Home Shared Equity Scheme

The First Home Scheme (FHS) is designed to boost both housing demand and supply by helping first time buyers and eligible applicants bridge the affordability gap when purchasing a newly built home. As the scheme is available for newly constructed homes or apartments, it creates a pool of eligible buyers, encouraging developers to bring forward additional projects.

Bank of Ireland has been an active supporter of the First Home Scheme since launch in 2022. To the end of September 2025, Bank of Ireland customers have accounted for c.46% of the 4,118 homes supported by the scheme since it began.

Helping homebuyers build a deposit and cover moving in costs

Bank of Ireland’s MortgageSaver account is designed to help first time buyers build their deposit steadily, offering a variable interest rate on regular savings and a €2,000 bonus interest payment (less DIRT) when they draw down a Bank of Ireland first time buyer mortgage, provided they save between €200 and €2,500 per month for at least six consecutive months and reach a minimum balance of €5,000.

In addition, our mortgage cashback offer can provide either 2 percent cashback on drawdown - or up to 3 percent through our Cashback Plus option, with an extra 1 percent payable after five years - helping to offset upfront costs such as professional fees or initial furnishing expenses.

Debt and equity financing for homebuilders

Bank of Ireland has an available debt fund of €2.5 billion to support homebuilding. Today, approximately €1.3bn of that fund is currently committed or approved. Funding is also recycled as debt is repaid by customers.

We are very active in seeking opportunities to support housing development across Ireland. We work with all types of home builders, from small SMEs to large publicly traded companies, and support the full range of housing types across private, social, and affordable tenures.

Equity financing has become an important part of the funding landscape for home construction in the past decade. Most home building projects use a blend of both debt and equity financing as a way to manage risk.

Equity financing is also important for developers that wish to progress activity on multiple sites at the same time or to move quicker between sites.

Recognising the expanding role for equity financing, Bank of Ireland supports two different equity funds currently in the market.

  • Pearl Residential Equity Fund (PREF) which has total committed funds of €46.5m. Bank of Ireland’s original contribution to the fund was €15m.
  • Irish Homebuilding Equity Fund (IHEF) has current committed funds of €76m. Bank of Ireland is the only bank involved with a commitment of €30m.

Attracting international investors into Ireland

Davy, part of Bank of Ireland Group, is Ireland’s leading provider of capital markets services to corporates. It provides access to capital, investors, and market intelligence for the Group’s home building clients. Engagement between institutional investors, national financial services firms, and these significant homebuilding companies is extremely important.

Bank of Ireland has also been a key sponsor of Ireland’s pavilion at MIPIM, the international property investment conference in France. Our support has helped establish and maintain Ireland’s presence at this significant global event, which attracts investors from around the world.

Social and affordable housing and the Approved Housing Body (AHB) sector

Bank of Ireland’s dedicated social housing team strongly supports AHBs, the Land Development Agency, and other market participants by providing debt and capital market solutions advice, leveraging expertise in Davy, with the goal to diversify sources of capital for social and affordable housing. €1bn fund is available for social and affordable housing.

Accelerating housing supply

During 2025 Bank of Ireland convened a group of private sector representatives – drawn from homebuilders, equity investors, representative bodies, and select professional services – consider actionable ways in which the private sector can accelerate housing supply. Our new trading down lending product is one of a range of initiatives that were informed by the deliberations of this group.

In addition, Bank of Ireland considered equity capital solutions to further support homebuilding which was discussed with the Government in advance of its recent housing action plan.

Bank of Ireland will also join other national banks in collaboration with Government bodies, to work with smaller home builders to create a mentoring programme. The objective of the programme will be to support smaller developers to professionalise and scale up their businesses to ensure the development of a sustainable and vibrant home building sector in Ireland.