The mortgage firm keeps pace and grows 14%

The number of mortgages constituted on houses registered in the property registers stood at 27,945 last February, 13.8% higher than the same month of 2017, as reported by the National Institute of Statistics on Thursday ( INE).

With this year-on-year rally, the mortgages on housing companies are chasing two consecutive months of promotions after having rebounded by 9.2% in January.

The average amount grew by 3.1% compared to February 2017, to 119,708 euros, while borrowed capital increased by 17.4% year-on-year, to stand at 3,345.2 million euros. In monthly rate (February on January), mortgages on housing decreased by 6.2%, while borrowed capital fell by 7.9%, its largest cut this month in at least five years.

Only five communities presented monthly increases in February, highlighting the upturns in Cantabria (+ 10.7%) and the Basque Country (+ 8.3%). The greatest decreases, on the other hand, were recorded by Extremadura (-27.3%) and Castilla-La Mancha (-24.2%).

The average interest rate for mortgage loans on housing reached 2.66% last February, compared to 3.13% for the same month of 2017, with an average term of 24 years.

62.4% of mortgages were made at a variable rate, in contrast to the 37.6% that was signed at a fixed rate. The average interest rate at the beginning for mortgages on variable-rate homes stood at 2.47%, compared to 3.05% for fixed rate mortgages.

By Autonomous Communities, those that registered the past month of February a greater number of mortgages constituted on houses were Madrid (5.365), Andalusia (5.223) and Catalonia (4.357).

In the second month of the year, the Autonomous Communities that presented the greatest inter-annual advances in the number of housing mortgages were País Vasco (+ 26.2%), Baleares (+ 26.1%) and Andalucía (+ 19%). The only decreases corresponded to Aragón (-9.5%), Extremadura (-3.5%) and Castilla y León (-0.3%).

Source: La Vanguardia