The mortgage company returns to positive rates and grows 2.9% in January

Number Mortgages on homes increased by 2.9% last January compared to the same month in 2022, to add 37,435 loans, the highest figure in the month of January since 2020, when more than 40,200 mortgages were signed, according to data published this Monday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

With a year-on-year increase in January, the mortgage house returns at positive rates after posting an 8.8% year-on-year decline in December 2022 following 21 consecutive months of year-on-year growth.

He average amount of mortgages consisting of homes increased by 1.3% year-on-year in the first month of the year, to 142,654 euros, while borrowed capital increased by 4.3%, to 5,340.2 million euros.

By autonomous communities, those that registered the largest number mortgages on apartments in January were Andalucía (7,923), Cataluña (6,907) and Madrid (5,623). Likewise, the regions where more capital was lent to establish residential mortgages were Madrid (€1,219 million), Catalonia (€1,083.3 million) and Andalusia (€970.5 million).

More than one was signed in ten communities last January mortgages on houses that in the same month of 2021, seven recorded year-on-year decreases, especially Aragón (-31.8%), La Rioja (-23.3%) and Asturias (-18.8%).

In contrast, the largest increase occurred in Navarre (+31.2%), the Canary Islands (+26.7%) and Extremadura (+18%), while the most moderate progress was seen in Castilla y León (+1%) and the Community of Valencia (+4.6%).

On a monthly basis (January 2023 vs. December 2022), mortgages on houses they increased by 24.5%, which is their biggest increase in the month of January since 2020. On the other hand, borrowed capital increased by 23.4%, which is the biggest increase in this month since 2019.

Interest rates on housing loans are skyrocketing

In January, the average interest rate for total mortgage loans amounted to 2.86%, with an average duration of 24 years.

In the case of housing, following a rate hike adopted by the European Central Bank (ECB) and an increase in the Euribor price, the average interest rate in January was 2.65%, up from 1.85% last year and the highest since June 2018. Average the mandate is 25 years.

He 32.6% of residential mortgages were established last January at a variable rate, while 67.4% were signed at a fixed rate, the highest percentage since September 2022. The average interest rate at the beginning was 2.38% for variable rate real estate mortgages and 2.79% in case of fixed rates.

INE reported that it continued to review the statistical series of interest rates from January 2020 after launching a new procedure to verify the validity of the results of the initial average interest rate in mortgages placed.

In this regard, he clarified that the changes made in the process of validating these records consist in readjusting the filter for accepting anomalous values, which improves the assessment of average interest rates. “In this way, the revised series more accurately reflects the level of interest rates and their evolution over time,” says the agency.

The total number of mortgaged properties increased by 2.7 percent

According to the data of the Agency for Statistics, number of mortgages on rural and urban real estate (flats are also included within the latter) increased by 2.7% in January compared to the same month in 2022, to a total of 48,501 loans.

The capital of approved mortgage loans increased by 12.6% in the first month of the year, exceeding EUR 8.039 million, while the average amount of mortgages on the total number of properties increased by 9.6% and added EUR 165,760.

Mortgages that change terms are falling

Last January, a total of 12,554 mortgages have changed their termswhich is a figure of 13.9% lower than that of the same month in 2022. Regarding the type of change of conditions, there were 10,332 novations (or modifications produced with the same financial entity), with an annual decrease of 14.9%.

The number of jobs that changed the entity (subrogations to the creditor) amounted to 1,708, which is 0.6% more than in January 2022. On the other hand, in 514 mortgages have changed the owner of the mortgaged property (subrogations to the debtor), 30.6% less than the year before.

Of the 12,554 mortgages with changes in terms, 39.5% are due to changes in interest rates. After the change in conditions, the percentage of mortgages with a fixed interest rate increased from 11.1% to 50.8%, while variable rate mortgages decreased from 87.9% to 47.8%.

Euribor is the type with the highest percentage variable rate mortgagesboth before the change (82.8%) and after (44.8%).