There's been a rise of seven per cent in mortgages being taken out through Credit Unions.

The Irish League of Credit Unions (ILCU) had 104,000 new loans issued from October to December 2024.

This amounts to 1,155 loans issued every day.

Chief Executive of the ILCU Dave Malone said a few things are leading to more mortgages being drawn down.

"Particularly in terms of mortgages, we're finding there's a couple of aspects that really drive the mortgage activity among our members," he said.

"The first one is that we offer a very competitive rate in many cases; our funding model is very different.

"We have members savings that we recycle and support homeowners in purchasing their homes, this is very different to other competitors.

"We also don't have the same fluctuation or are subject to the same volatility in our rates because we're not subject to the same wholesame money markets for our funding."

The average cost of buying a home nationally stood at just over €332,000 in 2024, while in the capital, it was almost €700,000.

This marked an increase of nine per cent.