Mortgage performance Spain
July figures issued this week show loan growth in Spain continues at a steady rate.
In comparison to July of 2017 the number of new Spanish home loans was up 14.6%, the capital lent was up 17% and the average loan size increased by 2.1%.
Against Junes figures of this year the month was less bouyant with number of loans down by a 4.3% and despite a rise in average loan size capital lent down 3.3%.
The average loan size was € 125.1k the highest average loan size seen in Spain for a long time. Whether this is due to higher loan to values being granted or a reflection of increases in the housing market is not clear from the data.
Annually the number of loan applications are up 10.2%, capital lent up 15.6% an average loan sizes up 4.9%.
In comparison to the last couple of months the level of credit being granted for buying a house increased to 65.7% of all lending. In June this was only 59.9%.
In general the dips in business over June are in line with normal trends over last 5 years where June performs better than July. Only in 2015 did July Spanish loan figures outperform June.
Fixed rate loans remain popular
Fixed rates granted for Portages in Spain and contracted as a percentage if all new credit increased in July for the first month in many months. Having moved in last few years from around 5% of the market to over 35% of the market fixed rate product types have stayed around 35% for many months.
In June fixed rates rose to 40.1% of the new loans signed up 14.5% on the year before.
The average interest rate in Spain for the month was 2.59% down 6.3% from July 2017. Of this the average variable rate was 2.36% and the average fixed rate 3%. Both are down on average rates of last year. The overall average rate was below that of July and at its lowest level in last 12 months.
The average term was 24 years .
Madrid beats Andalucia
Andalucia has seen a dip in activity in last couple of months and whilst remaining up in terms of numbers for the year saw a drop over June of 6.6% and in capital lent 3.3%.
The Balearics saw a good increase in Spanish Mortgage activity from last month but a dip from the same month of last year but remains annually well above last year after being the best performing region of 2017.
Cataluna seems unaffected at present by any issues relating to independence and whilst not showing as much growth as other regions never the less has stabilized in terms of numbers and capital lent.
Madrid after a very good June dropped back a bit but still managed more mortgage completions than Andalucia for the second month running. Annually Madrid is seeing increases of 30.4% in capital lent and 27.5% in numbers of.
Murcia whilst not quite as good on numbers has seen capital lent rise by 43% when assessing against 2017.
The Canary Islands are showing small and steady growth but behind most other coastal regions.
The Spanish Banks saw 28,674 loans cancelled or redeemed for the month but with 29,287 new loans constituted there was a small net inflow onto the lenders mortgage books.