Apartment purchases in January drop by 7%, and mortgage approvals by 16%

The House sales fell by 7.3% in January compared to the same month in 2022, while Mortgage approvals sank 16.1% in a context characterized by rising interest rates and increasing financing costs, states the General Council of Notaries. In addition, apartment prices also fell by 1.7 percent to 1,627 euros per square meter in January.

Namely, in January, 44,569 sales of apartments were registered. By home type, apartment sales decreased 7.3% year-on-year to 34,082 units, while single-family home sales fell 7.6% to 10,487 units.

Sales fall in 14 communities

The purchase and sale of apartments fell in 14 autonomous communities, and increased in the remaining three. The biggest decrease was recorded in the Balearic Islands (27.8%); Basque Country (18.5%); Madrid (18.2%); Navarra (16.2%) and Cantabria (16.1%), while in Castilla-La Mancha (8.7%); La Rioja (8.6%); Castilla y León (8.2%) and Andalucía (8%) declines were somewhat more moderate, but higher than the Spanish average.

It still exceeds the national average, but with negative rates found in Murcia (0.5%); Aragon (1.6%); Asturias (3%); Canary Islands (5.4%) and Catalonia (6.1%). Just the opposite, Sale grew up in Extremadura (5%), Valencian Community (4.9%) and Galicia (0.8%).

Mortgages and their amount have been reduced

In January, Housing loans for the purchase of an apartment reduced by 16.1% compared to the previous year, up to 20,758 operations. On the other hand, the average amount of these loans fell by 4.1% on an annual basis, reaching an average of 146,181 euros. The percentage of apartment purchases financed with a mortgage loan was 46.6 percent. In addition, with this type of purchase with financing, the loan amount represented an average of 71.3% of the price.

At the regional level, mortgage loans for the purchase of a house did not increase in any region and exceeded negative rates of 20% in Navarre (27.4%); Castilla y León (24.6%); Basque Country (22.7%) and Madrid (22.4%).

As for the average amount of new mortgage loans for the purchase of a house, there was an increase in La Rioja (47%) and the Basque Country (7.5%) and a decrease in Navarre (16.3%) and Castilla-La Mancha (9.2%). ). .

The price is cheaper

The price per square meter is lower by 1.7 percent on an annual basis. It is registered in ten autonomies an increase in housing prices, and a decrease in the remaining seven. In order of magnitude, the increase was recorded in La Rioja (35.2%), Madrid (8.9%), the Canary Islands (8.4%), Cantabria (7.9%) and Galicia (5.9%). Meanwhile, more moderate increases were recorded in Catalonia (5%), Andalusia (3.1%), Aragon (2.2%), the Community of Valencia (1.7%) and Castilla-La Mancha (0.3%).

House prices fell in Navarre (21.7%); Balearic Islands (20.7%); Extremadura (9.5%); Basque Country (8.9%); Asturias (4.9%), Castilla y León (4.4%) and Murcia (3.3%).

market cooling

The declines recorded in January occurred after the statistics prepared by the Main Council of Notaries on the basis of acts registered with the notary showed that in the whole of 2022. home sales increased by 6.1% to 719,680 units, the highest in 15 years, while prices rose by 7.2% compared to the previous year.

match with rising interest rates to deal with escalating inflationAlready in October, notaries recorded a drop in sales and mortgages, but not prices. Those adjustments deepened in December, with a 17.8% decline in sales and a 22.5% decline in mortgages, although the price stopped at 0.5%.