INE: Mortgages Increased By 20.2% In September

27 November 2015 – ABC

The signing of new mortgages for home purchases rose by 20.2% YoY in September, with 23,828 new mortgage loans granted during the month.

According to data published by Spain’s National Institute of Statistics on Thursday, the increase is slightly higher, 23.6%, if we compare the figures with those from the previous month.

In total, the volume of mortgages granted to purchase homes in September amounted to just over €2,619 million, which represented a 24.3% increase compared with the same month in 2014, and a 30.3% increase compared with the previous month.

This data from INE shows that 36,010 mortgages were signed in total, for all types of properties including urban land, representing a YoY increase of 18.7% and a MoM increase of 24.4%. The value of these mortgages amounted to €4,785 million, i.e. 23.9% more than in September 2014 and 9.1% more than a month earlier.

54.7% of the mortgages signed in September were granted for homes, according to INE. The data also reveals that 90.3% of mortgages had variable interest rates, compared with 9.7% that had fixed interest rates.

Euribor was the most typically used reference rate for the constitution of variable rate mortgages; specifically it was used for 94.3% of all new contracts. The average interest rate, at the beginning of the term, for mortgage granted over homes was 3.34%, which represented a 7.1% decrease compared with the same period in 2014.

By autonomous region, those that registered the highest number of home mortgages in September were: the Community of Madrid (4,949), Andalucía (4,330) and Cataluña (3,755). The regions with the highest YoY variations were the Balearic Islands (74%), Cataluña (34.3 %) and Cantabria (33%).

The regions in which the highest amount of capital was loaned for the constitution of home mortgages were: the Community of Madrid (€776.1 million), Cataluña (€446.7 million) and Andalucía (€398.0 million).

The regions with the highest positive monthly variations in terms of the number of mortgages granted for homes were: Cataluña (47.5%) and the Community of Madrid (43.4%).

Meanwhile, the only regions that recorded negative monthly rates were La Rioja (-39%), Cantabria (-14%), Galicia (-11.2%) and Asturias (-1.1%).

Original story: ABC

Translation: Carmel Drake