New Mortgages Rise For First Time in 18 Months
January 27th, 2010
According to data released today by the National Statistics Institute (INE), the number of home mortgages issued during November 2009 was 52,043, representing a growth of 1.8 percent over the same month in 2008 and the first recorded rise since April 2007.
The volume of loan capital amounted to 6010.5 million, 10.1% less than the same month in 2008, which means that the average amount borrowed fell by 11.7% to 115,492 euros. Despite the rebound year in November, the cumulative comparison of January and November 2009 to the same period in 2008 showed an overall decrease of 23.2%.
Savings banks granted the most mortgages (52.2%), followed by banks (36.6%) and other financial institutions (10.9%). As for borrowed capital, savings banks granted 45.3% of the total, banks provided 43.0% and other financial institutions contributed 11.7%.
The average interest rate of savings banks was 4.25% and the average term was 23 years, while in banks, the average rate was 4.03% and the average term was 21 years. The variable interest mortgage remains the preferred option in 95.2% of mortgages, compared with only 4.8% opting for fixed rate. The Euribor was reported as the reference rate that was used in 88.7% of the mortgages.
The data also shows that in November, 40,156 mortgages had their conditions changed, 35.3 percent more than last year – 32,379 of these were changes in the conditions of a mortgage with the same institution (42.4% higher), mostly being attributed to mortgage payers taking advantage of lower interest rates and longer terms.
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