After rising for the first time in 17 months in January, Eurozone mortgage base rates headed down to a new low in February, suggesting the downward trend is not over yet.
12-month Euribor – the rate used for most mortgages in Spain – came in at -0.191 in February, compared to -0.189 in January, a percentage decline of -1.1% (but 80.2% lower than the same month last year).
As a result, borrowers in Spain with annually resetting Spanish mortgages will see their mortgage payments fall by around €4 per month for a typical €120,000 loan with a 20 year term.
New Spanish mortgage lending expands in 2017
New mortgage lending rose 9.7% last year to 310,096 new loans, according to the latest figures from the National Institute of Statistics (INE). That represents the fourth consecutive year of increases, following on the heels of seven years of declines. That said, growth last year was in single digits, in comparison to the double digits clocked up in the previous two years, hinting at a slowdown in the rate of growth. And the rate of growth in new lending in December showed no growth compared to the previous year, after declining 3.7% in November, suggesting that growth in new lending slowed down as the year went on.
The average loan value was up 6.3% to €116,709 in 2017, and the average interest rate was 2.65% in December.
