(Updates with industry opinion)
The number of home mortgages in Spain reached 41,022 transactions in October, 13.5% more than the interannual rate, and has already been on the rise for 20 consecutive months, according to data released this Thursday by the National Statistics Institute (INE) .
The Idealista real estate portal qualifies that the increase, which does not hide the slowdown in sales operations in the last part of the year, “is explained by the increase in renegotiations of existing mortgages, in particular the transition from variable to fixed.
The banks, instead of opting for the subrogation formula, are opting for the fast track of cancellation and new mortgage constitution, he indicates.
Despite the rebound, as “the market continues at record numbers”, as pointed out by the director of studies of pisos.com, Ferrán Font, signs of a slowdown are starting to appear, such as the change in interest rate policy by the European bank Central Bank (ECB).
The director of studies at Fotocasa, María Matos, expressed the same line, observing that “in the real estate sector, a moderation in the demand for home purchases has already been noted, after 60% of buyers were influenced by the change in monetary policy and 24% were forced to paralyze the purchase” because they consider the terms of the loan “unattractive”.
The average amount of mortgages for the purchase of homes, which represent 69.8% of the total capital lent, was 149,730 euros, with an increase of 8.4% compared to the same month of the previous year.
As regards the average amount of mortgages on the total number of properties registered in the real estate registers in October, from public deeds completed previously, it was 163,485 euros, 11.8% more than in the same month in 2021.
INTEREST RATES
33.2% of home loans were granted at variable rates, and 66.8% at fixed rates – the lowest percentage since September 2021 -, with an average interest rate at the beginning of 2.03% for those with variable rates and 2.74% for those with fixed rates.
María Matos sees a “change of cycle” in that 66% of mortgages signed at fixed rates; since April, when it hit 75%, “this figure has been declining due to changing banking conditions,” she says.
TERMS CHANGES
In October, 10,198 mortgages had somehow changed their conditions, 50.9% less than a year earlier.
In the month there were 8,401 novations (or changes made with the same financial institution), 51.8% less than a year earlier; the number of transactions that changed entity (subrogations to the creditor) decreased by 44.2%, and the number of mortgages in which the owner of the mortgaged property changed (subrogations to the debtor) by 53.0%.
Of these 10,198 mortgages that have undergone changes in conditions, 35.3% are due to changes in interest rates; the percentage of fixed-rate mortgages went from 24.2% to 53.3%, while that of variable-rate mortgages decreased from 75.0% to 44.9%.
The Euribor is the rate to which the highest percentage of variable rate mortgages refers, both before the change (69.3%) and after (42.2%).
AUTONOMOUS COMMUNITIES
Analyzing the data by Autonomous Communities, those with the highest number of mortgages on homes are Andalusia (8,116), the Community of Madrid (7,984) and Catalonia (6,692).
The communities in which the greatest amount of capital has been lent for home loans are the Community of Madrid (1,762.8 million euros), Catalonia (1,121.2 million) and Andalusia (1,010.4 million).
As for the communities with the highest annual rates of change in the number of home loans, they were the Canary Islands (46.3%), Aragon (38.3%) and the Basque Country (33.2%) , while those with the greatest decreases were Castilla La Mancha, where it decreased by 28.6%); the Foral Community of Navarre, where it decreased by 5.7%, and the Region of Murcia, where it decreased by 3.4%.
