Tens of thousands of young people are still buying property for the first time according to research from the State's largest lender Irish Permanent.

According to Irish Permanent a very surprising 13 per cent of first time buyers are aged between 20 and 24. The main explanation given rising prices is that parents are putting up much of the money for deposits.

Irish Permanent is the biggest lender with about 25 per cent of the market share of around 400,000 loans a year. This means that up to 52,000 people under the age 24 bought a home in the last year.

The lender also found that the vast bulk of borrowers are in the 25 to 34 age group. This has always been the case but the fact that only around 20 per cent of first time buyers are over 34 surprised the number crunchers given the escalation in prices in recent years.

However, perhaps unsurprisingly the majority of these first time buyers were buying home outside of Dublin. Over the past 12 months over 80 per cent of first time buyers bought outside the Dublin postal codes or county Dublin. The vast majority of these were in counties Meath, Kildare and Wicklow.

This is a dramatically different picture to just a few years ago when the vast majority of first time buyers would have been buying in the Dublin post codes or perhaps Co Dublin.

As well as buying outside Dublin more and more first time buyers are buying as couples. Irish Permanent does not break down differences between couples buying together and those where two friends or siblings take out a joint mortgage.

But together they make up around three quarters of all purchasers. Single people follow and 24 per cent can still raise enough finance to buy on their own.

But just under 1 per cent have three or more names on the mortgage. Irish Permanent and many other lenders will lend to groups of three or even more friends however it will only take into account the incomes of two at most when deciding how much to lend. Nevertheless all can have their name on the mortgage, making it far easier to meet the repayments.

Most borrowers are still opting for 25 year terms with only one in five opting for 30 or more years, despite the lower repayments this would bring.

After 25 years, 20 years is the next most popular among first time buyers who are keen to pay as little interest as possible and get rid of their loans quickly. However, very few are opting for 10 or 15 year terms.

The majority of these buyers at 53 per cent are choosing variable rate loans, compared with 31 per cent in 1995 according to data from the Department of the Environment. Interest rates which are likely to be heading downwards this year ensure that the trend is still towards variable loans, according to Irish Permanent.

Those who opt for fixed rate are also overwhelmingly opting for very short fixed rates, particularly one year fixes. These are generally around the same level as the one year discounted variable ate offered by most lenders. A few still opt for two and three year loans but five and 10-year ones are the exception particularly among first-time buyers.