Eurozone mortgage base rates have fallen all year, and are now well below their lows of 2010.

Euribor (12 months) – the interest rate most often used to calculate mortgage repayments in Spain – fell to 0.588pc in November, the lowest level on record, and 71pc lower than the same time last year.

Euribor has now fallen for 13 consecutive months, and is now almost 90pc below its peak of 5.393 in July 2008.

As a result of the latest fall, interest payments on a 25-year, €150,000 mortgage at Euribor +1pc will fall by about €1,220/year.

Collapse in new mortgage lending tells the real story

Lower mortgage payments sound like great news for borrowers, but that’s only half the story. The reality is that many borrowers now can’t get financing at any price, so low base rates for them are academic. The mortgage financing taps have been pretty well turned off for most, as you can see from the following charts showing new mortgage lending down an annualised 32pc to 21,195 in September, a far cry from the 120,000 odd new mortgages signed each month in the boom.