Sharp drop in new mortgage loans for housing in April

The rise in rates by the European Central Bank added to the increase in housing prices is already being felt in the real estate sector. To these two factors must be added the tightening of financing conditions and access. For this reason, in April the number of new mortgages plummeted by 32%. According to data from the General Council of Notaries, mortgage loans for housing stood at 21,884 operations, 31.9% less than a year ago.

The average amount of these loans also fell, although not as strongly, by 6.4%, reaching 142,306 euros on average. The percentage of home purchases financed through a mortgage loan stood at 44.1%. In addition, in this type of purchase with financing, the amount of the loan represented an average of 70.6% of the price.

Mortgage loans for house purchase decreased for the fifth consecutive month in all the autonomous regions. Lower falls than the national average were recorded in: the Basque Country (-31.8%), Andalucía (-31.5%), Castilla-La Mancha (-29.1%), Asturias (-28.5%), Galicia (-28.5%), Valencian Community (-25.3%), Murcia (-24.9%), Aragon (-24.3%), Canary Islands (-22.3%), La Rioja (- 21.4%) and the Balearic Islands (-12.9%).

The autonomous communities whose rates exceeded the national average were: Navarra (-48.0%), Cantabria (-39.8%), Catalonia (-39.1%), Extremadura (-35.8%), Castilla y León (-34.7%) and Madrid (-34.2%).

Regarding the average amount of new mortgage loans for home purchase, the evolution continued to be uneven by Autonomous Community, as it grew in two and decreased in the remaining 15. The increases in La Rioja (14.2%) and the Canary Islands (4.5%) and the setbacks in Extremadura (-18.3%) and Castilla y León (-13.9%) stood out.

The sale of houses also falls

Home sales fell 20.7% in April compared to a year earlier. According to data provided this Wednesday by the General Council of Notaries, the price per square meter continued to grow, albeit very moderately, after rising 0.9% year-on-year.

In April, 49,639 home sales were registered, according to the operations notarized before a notary. By type of dwelling, apartment transactions decreased by 20.2% year-on-year, reaching 38,269 units, while in the case of single-family homes the decrease was 22.3% to 11,370 operations.

Sales fell in all the autonomous communities and the greatest decreases occurred in La Rioja (-33.6%); Canary Islands (-29%); Madrid (-28.9%); Basque Country (-25.1%); Navarre (-25%); Balearic Islands (-23.7%); Andalusia (-22.4%); Asturias (-22.4%); Catalonia (-21.9%) and Cantabria (-21.4%). The best performance occurred in Murcia, with a drop of 9.3% year-on-year.

Faced with falls in operations and mortgages, in April house prices continued to rise, albeit moderately after becoming more expensive by 0.9% year-on-year to 1,622 euros/m².

The prices of the flats had a decrease of 0.2%reaching 1,787 euros/m², while the price of single-family homes increased by 1.5% to 1,308 euros/m².

In 15 autonomies, price increases were registered, the most notable being those of Castilla-La Mancha (20.30%); Aragon (17.2%); Canary Islands (12.6%) and Asturias (11.7%). On the other hand, house prices recorded declines in La Rioja (-9.5%) and the Basque Country (-1.6%).