Small rise in number of new mortgages in April

Following months of rises of above 2% in the number of new mortgages taken out 50,342 new mortgages were taken out in April which is a rise of just 0.2% compared to a month ago.

According to figures released today by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) the average amount of new mortgages taken out in April was 114,132 euros which is a fall of 1.1% compared to a year ago and a fall of 1.9% compared to a month ago.
In total banks and building societies lent 5,745.6 million euros which is 1% less than a year ago and 1.9% less than the previous month.

The average amount of a mortgages for a property in April this year was 129,734 euros which is 10.6% less compared to a year ago and 8.7% less compared to March.

The number of mortgaged properties fell by 4.3% in April compared to the same month a year ago and now stands at 79,392. This reduction in the number of mortgages is mainly down to the fall in the number of mortgaged country estates to just 3,664.

The number of mortgaged properties in urban areas fell by just 2.4% to 75,728.

The value of mortgages for urban properties is 9,593 million euros and for country estates 706 million euros which is 10.4% less and 47.2% less than a year ago respectively.

Building societies conceded more mortgages than banks accounting for 50.4% of the total number of mortgages followed by banks (38.4%). Other financial entities conceded 11.2% of the total number of new mortgages.

However, banks lent more accounting for 45.3% of the total amount lent for mortgages while building societies lent 42.8% of the total with other financial institutions accounting for 11.9% of the total.

The average interest rate for mortgages in April was 3.92% which is a rise of 0.3% compared to March.

Building societies offered average interest rates of 4.

07% in April for an average of 23 years compared to an average of 21 years for banks and an average interest rate of 3.81%.

According to INE 95.4% of mortgages taken out in April were on variable interest rates while the rest (4.6%) were on fixed rates.

The number of mortgages which were modified numbered 37,844 in April which is a fall of 7.7% compared to the same period last year.

With regards to mortgages for houses and flats just 23,372 were modified in April which is 12.2% less than in April 2009.

Out of the total number of mortgages which were modified 31,920 were modified with the same bank or building society which is a fall of 4.8% compared to a year ago while 4,059 changed their mortgage to another financial entity – 22.8% less than a year ago. A total of 1,865 mortgages changed the name of the mortgage holder – a fall of 14.

2% compared to the previous year.

Out of the total number of mortgages which altered their conditions 38% changed to a variable interest rate.

In April this year 46,182 mortgages were paid off in full which is 9.1% more than a year ago. There were 2.2% more cancellations of mortgages for country estates while 9.3% of mortgages for urban properties were cancelled and 11.3% of mortgaged houses and flats were cancelled.

La Rioja and the Balearic Islands have the highest number of mortgaged properties per 100,000 in habitants (347 and 279 respectively).

Castilla-La Mancha saw the highest rise in the number of new mortgages (27,4%) followed by Asturias (19,7%) while the number of new mortgages taken out in La Rioja fell by 42.6% and by 26.1% in the Canary Islands.

Related information: Mortgages in Spain