The blank space on a mortgage application after the word "occupation" hasn't been as important since before the boom.

According to Sarah Wellband of Rea Mortgage Choice, lending institutions have gone back to looking for the permanent pensionable jobs they were so fond of before. "Teachers, guards, civil servants will definitely have an easier time than someone who is going to put down 'self-employed' or 'consultant' or anything in the tech sector," she says.

As an independent mortgage advisor she shops around the lending institutions for clients and she has come across an unofficial blacklist of certain companies and certain job areas. "Either the companies are in the news for being in talks about redundancies or they are in a sector that the banks believe will have trouble riding out the downturn in business generally," she says.

The mortgage lending market has slowed in tandem with the property market and become more cautious.

In 2000, Bank of Ireland's mortgage lending grew by 26 per cent. This year the bank reported a growth of 19 percent. The same story of growth is seen across all major lending institutions with a significant fall-off in mortage applications in the latter half of the year.

"The two growth areas are first-time buyers and equity release," says Olive Moran of Bank of Ireland, adding that the average mortgage taken out by a first-time buyer increased from £69,000 (€87,630) in 1999 to £91,000 (€115,570) in 2000. As even the higher amount isn't enough to buy a house in the major cities, first-time buyers clearly need to make up the shortfall somehow, which is where equity release is playing an increasing role, with parents re-mortgaging their own homes to provide their children with substantial deposits.

The money would appear to be there for first-time buyers but traditionally they are the sector most susceptible to cold feet. One agent reports a 20 per cent drop-out rate on new home completions whereby a first-time buyer puts down a deposit on a house and doesn't go through with the sale. A recurring question on the Q and A section on the Irish Times property website is from first-time buyers who have their mortgages in place but are nervous about buying in an economy that is experiencing increased job losses and growing uncertainty.

The withdrawal of open-ended bridging finance began to effect the middle of the market last year and has helped slow it down to a trickle, particularly in the second half of this year. "We have several houses on our books that we could sell tomorrow if there was a more liberal attitude to bridging," says one agent. "But people can't get money unless they have a contract agreed on their own house and that has a knock-on effect down the line - the banks aren't taking any risks."

Stories about how difficult it is to get money at the upper end of the market are traded among agents. The most extreme case on one agent's books is a house that sold at auction for over £1m to a businessman, who found out only after he paid the deposit that the bank would not loan him the money. "He had taken it for granted that he would get the finance," said the agent. "I don't think he has given up hope of getting the money but he is shocked by how difficult it is." In another case another agent tells of a woman who was about to go to an auction in October on the strength of mortgage approval she received eight months previously only to find on the eve of the auction that the approval was no longer there.

The low interest rate environment "means that property is more affordable now," says Niall O'Grady of Irish Permanent, "However we've certainly seen a softening of activity in recent months." According to Olivia Moran at Bank of Ireland the average salary of a first-time buyer is now in the region of £35,000 per annum - well above the income level of the majority of twenty-somethings. This would partially explain why affordable housing schemes are proving to be of interest.