Abstract
The Irish mortgage market has performed extremely well in the last ten years on the back of the boom in the property market and while naysayers have long predicted a slow-down, the market has kept on growing at a high rate - until now.The time of cheap mortgage borrowing is ending as interest rates are rising. The UK base rate, which affects borrowing in NI, rose three times in 2006 with two further rises occurring in early 2007. Similarly the eurozone rate has also increased which has affected RoI mortgage owners.