Reports and updates on the Spanish mortgage market.
This report page gives you the latest data and analysis of the performance of the Spanish mortgage market in the latest year or half-year. If reports are available for previous periods you will see them listed in the tabs below. The latest report on the Spanish mortgage market will be featured in the first tab.
This report on the Spanish mortgage market is based on public data from sources such as the Spanish Housing Ministry, the College of Land Registrars, the General Council of Notaries, the Bank of Spain and Eurostat, amongst others. If you want to research the data behind this report you can do so by subscribing to the SPI Data Hub.
Spanish mortgage market in the first half of 2024 (H1 2024)
Spanish mortgage lending was strong in the first half of 2024, which helps to explain why home sales and prices have also been buoyant this year.
There were 163,859 new mortgages signed in the first half of the year, up 14pc on the same period last year, and 21pc above the ten-year average for the period, according to data from the Spanish notaries’ association, and illustrated in the chart above. It was the third-highest level of new mortgage lending in the last decade, behind only the post-pandemic boom years of 2021 and 2022.
The average value of new mortgage lending was the second-highest on record, with the average new mortgage loan in H1 coming in at €150,545, up 1pc on last year and 7pc on the ten-year average (next chart). So both the volume and value of new mortgages rose in the first six months, putting more investment capital at the disposal of home buyers in Spain.
Spanish mortgage interest rates in H1 2024
The strong mortgage market performance comes despite a radical change in the interest-rate environment since the start of 2022, as shown in the next chart. Mortgage base rates (Euribor 12M) have been steady or declining since the start of 2024. Euribor closed the first half at 3.650, down 8.9pc compared to the same period in 2023. The average rate of Euribor in H1 was 3.672, down 1pc compared to the previous year.
According to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) regarding new mortgage lending the average fixed rate in the first five months of the year was 3.56pc, and the average variable rate was 3.16pc, with both rates starting to decline after a year and a half of increases, as illustrated by the next chart.
By type of interest rate, in the first five months of 2024 55pc of new mortgages had a fixed rate and 45pc a variable rate, compared to 63pc and 37pc respectively in 2023, so fixed rate mortgages have been losing ground in the higher interest-rate environment, as shown by the final chart below. Fixed rate mortgages are more interesting when borrowers expect interest rates to go up, not down.
