Signing of new mortgages for the purchase of a home fell 19.1% year-on-year in November to 32,645 transactions, the lowest recorded this month since 2020, according to data released on Thursday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE). ).
With this decline, home mortgages have fallen for ten consecutive months. However, the renewed double-digit decline in November weakened slightly compared to the 22.3% decline observed in October.
Despite this year-on-year decrease in the interest rate, the mortgage lender reported an increase of 2.3% compared to the previous month of October.
However, there has been a decline of 17.8% since the beginning of the year, following the impact of successive interest rate hikes that made financing more expensive and made it more difficult to buy and sell houses.
The average interest rate on mortgages is 3.27%
The average interest rate for new mortgages was 3.27% in November and the average term was 24 years. It has not decreased since December 2022 compared to the previous month (3.32%).
More than half of the mortgages (53.2%) were signed with a fixed rate and the remaining 46.8% with a variable rate, the latter the highest percentage since January 2021.
Additionally, the average initial interest rate was 3.03% for variable rate home mortgages and 3.53% for fixed rate mortgages.
Debt capital falls by 19.5%
The capital lent in November was reduced by 19.5% compared to the same month last year and exceeded 4,762 million.
The average loan amount, however, fell by 0.5% to 145,894 euros in November.
So far this year, capital lent is down 19.4%, while the average amount is down 2%.
Despite these declines, both indicators rose by 6.1% and 3.8%, respectively, compared to the previous month of October.
Nearly 39% of mortgages with modifications were due to interest rate changes
Assignments to the debtor (change of ownership) increased by 59.5%, assignments to the creditor (change in legal entity) increased by 22.8% and novations (changes in the same financial institution) increased by 4.1%.
Additionally, nearly 39% of total mortgages with modified terms were due to changes in interest rates.
Eleven communities with above-average falls
By Autonomous Community, the number of new residential mortgage loans fell in all except Castile-La Mancha, where it increased by 40.9%, and Cantabria, where it increased by 8%.
The largest decrease was recorded in La Rioja (53.4%); Extremadura (45.4%); Balearic Islands (39.4%); Canary Islands (38.2%) or Murcia (31.1%).
Among the major markets, real estate mortgages fell by 27.2% in Catalonia, by 3.5% in Madrid, by 19.8% in Andalusia, by 25.1% in the Valencian Community and by 17% in the Empty Country, ,6 %.
In real estate, the number of mortgages taken out fell by 18.4% to 43,009 in November compared to the previous year. For urban properties the decline was 18.2% with 42,322 transactions and for rural properties there was an adjustment of 30.3% with 687 transactions.
The capital lent for mortgages on real estate fell by 15.8% to almost 7,000 million and the average amount increased by 3.2% to 161,484 euros.
