ICS Mortgages, which has some of the highest lending rates in the market, is also cutting its interest rates by up to 0.5 percentage points.
It said it was making a number of changes, which experts said meant it was easing its lending criteria to cater for first-time buyers and owner-occupiers moving to a second home.
It is now the second lender that allows borrowers the option to pay off their mortgages up to the age of 80.
New lender MoCo, which is owned by Austrian bank Bawag, told brokers recently it was preparing to issue mortgages that people can pay off until the age of 80.
Most lenders have credit policies that mean they want the mortgage paid off by the time the homeowner reaches the age of 70.
Now ICS says it was making a number of changes, including that it would lend until the age of 80 for owner-occupier borrowers. This is provided “income is demonstrated to continue until age 80, for example, rental income and pensions”.
ICS Mortgages, which is the trading name of Dilosk, and its rival non-bank lender Finance Ireland have been hit hard by the increase in wholesale interest rates. This led ICS to raise its variable rates to as high as 6.40pc. No announcement has been made to cut the variable rate.
But ICS is cutting its owner-occupier three-year and five-year fixed rates – a move that will lead to a reduction of 0.5 percentage points on both these rates with effect from June 1.
ICS, which was in the past a building society that catered for public servants, is also making changes for public servants applying for a mortgage.
“As well as these rate reductions and enhancements, at ICS Mortgages we continue to innovate our product suite accompanied by regular rate reviews,” ICS chief commercial officer Ray McMahon said.
Martina Hennessy, managing director of broker Doddl.ie, said non-bank lenders such as ICS and Finance Ireland got very strict when assessing borrowers for mortgages in 2022 when wholesale and European Central Bank rates started to rise. “They are now easing as they feel rates will come down,” she said.
In the last six weeks, there have been rate decreases from six lenders.
Broker Michael Dowling said any rate reduction was welcome but he said the 0.5 points fixed-rate reductions still left ICS Mortgages a minimum of 1.4 points dearer than the cheapest lender. He said the other changes announced mirror what MoCo offers in terms of lending to age 80, and lending three points higher on the salary scale for public servants.