A summary of the Latest Euribor and Spanish mortgage news

Euribor (12 months), the interest rate generally used to calculate mortgage repayments in Spain, rose to 1.714pc in February, from 1.55pc in January, a monthly change of +10.6pc.

On an annualised basis, Euribor is 39.9pc higher than it was a year ago (see graph above), meaning higher monthly repayments for borrowers with mortgages resetting now.

Repayments for a typical mortgage (150,000 Euros, 25 years, Euribor +0.25) will go up by around 35 Euros /month, or 400 Euros / year. That will punish many stretched household budgets in Spain.

New Mortgage Lending

The final figures for 2010 show new mortgage lending fell by an annualised 7.4pc in 2010 (volume), the 4th year in a row of declining lending.

Looking for something positive to say about this, at least the decline has slowed down compared to the fall of 22pc in 2009 and 32pc in 2008.

Overall lending was down 7.8pc in value terms, with the average residential loan value last year at 116,860 Euros, down 0.8pc compared to 2009.

The average new mortgage interest rate was 3.87pc, down from 4.59pc in 2009.