Mortgages in Spain for February 2014
The monthly mortgage data for mortgages in Spain was issued today by the statistical office for the month of February this year.
Despite a general feel that on the property side things are starting to move with an increase in the number of people looking to buy in Spain, this has yet to be reflected in the mortgage data released so far this year.
Whilst the news coming from two Spanish Banks this week, Sabadell and Caixa with more Banks reporting next week, showing a general profit recovery and a decrease in loans in default this has yet to flow through to the overall mortgage market in terms of new loans.
Mortgage trends
February 2014 showed yet another decline in both number of mortgages granted for dwellings and capital lent, both against the previous month of January and against February of 2013.
The total decline so far this year is minus 32.7% when looking at number of mortgages and minus 33% when assessing against capital lent.
The number of loans granted by Spanish Banks in February, in comparison to January of this year were 6% lower and the capital lent was 5.2% lower.
When looking at the data against February of the previous year the number of loans are 33% lower than February of 2013 and capital lent 33.7% lower.
The reduction in number of Spanish loans granted between the months of January and February was at the second highest level for 5 years. Only 2012 had a bigger decrease in number of mortgages and capital lent between these two months.
Average Loan sizes for dwellings
The average value of mortgages granted in February was € 102.443 which was 1.1% lower than February of previous year but 0.8% higher than January of this year.
Numbers of mortgages granted and cancelled
In total 16,420 new mortgages were recorded at land registry for February and 24,916 mortgages were cancelled in the same period with a net outflow of 8,496. Reports out today suggest that whilst the Spanish Banks are now back in the credit game they do expect another year of net outflows.
Spanish interest rates
Average interest rates for residential mortgages in February were 4.11% this is slightly lower than January and is the lowest overall average rate since March 2013. Whilst partly due to the Euribor rate there is now a trend of lower margins particularly for resident loans although we are as yet seeing little to no movement on rates for non residents.
Regional activity
Highest number of mortgages granted was in Madrid, Andalucía and Cataluña but overall the Balearics remains the region with the lowest decrease year on year.