This interest rates meaning mortgage In Spain, it was 2.02% in the third quarter of 2022Based on the latest data collected by the iAhorro mortgage comparison tool and published by the European Mortgage Federation (EMF). This is almost the same as mortgages in Spain. Two percentage points cheaper than the European averageat the same time, it was 3.70% TIN.
“Mortgages have become more expensive values euribor increasing and this European Central Bank retouched interest rates upwards Simone Colombelli, Mortgage director of benchmarking tool and mortgage advisor iAhorro, confirmed that financial institutions will eventually implement this increase as well.
If we compare the data from the EMF with the data provided by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), we see that the trend in mortgage interest rates in Spain is upwards. Specifically, according to the latest data published by INE, the average interest rate signed in January 2023 in our country (still no data for February and March) was 2.65%. let’s remember this In May 2022, this rate was 1.76%. (the same data were recorded in March and January of that year), it was at the lowest level of the historical series and has been increasing ever since.
“We see the same trend in iAhorro: the average since October 2022. Fixed mortgage rates signed by our users are increasing and are currently between 2% and 3%.”. And with regard to variable mortgages, “the spreads are down, even below 0.5%, but as Euribor rises rapidly (March closed at 3,647%), such mortgages are also becoming quite expensive,” adds a spokesperson for iAhorro.
In Spain, average mortgage interest rates, which were 1.63% in the second quarter of 2022 according to EMF, rose to 2.02% in the third quarter of the same year, but it remains our country. one of the cheapest mortgages in the entire continentIt is only behind Denmark (1.11%), France (1.59%) and Portugal (1.93%), including the European organization.
And the increases from one quarter to the next are remarkable: mortgage rates in Germany rose from 2.24% in the second quarter of 2022 to 2.88% in the third quarter; It increased by more than one percentage point in Finland (from 1.60% to 2.75%) and by almost two and a half points in Hungary: 7.95%, up from 5.48% in the last report of the European Mortgage Federation. to. Among the countries that have changed the least is Italy, where average mortgage rates increased by 0.22 percentage points (from 2.04% to 2.26%) but still higher than Spain.
The country that stands out among the owners most expensive mortgage of the moment Poland, interest rates have already reached 9% on average. It is followed by Hungary with 7.95%, the Czech Republic with 5.72% and Romania far from fourth and fifth place with an average of 5.70%. And the war between Ukraine and Russia has been one of the main triggers for the rise in prices and thus interest rates, which particularly affected the countries closest to the conflict.
However, as Colombelli explains, “Mortgage rates in Eastern European countries were higher than in other countries even before the war began,” and if we look at the evolution of home ownership, we see that “Increases in interest rates do not affect purchases. living place”. And if we look at the data provided by the European Mortgage Federation on the percentage of home ownership, we see that this data exceeds 95% in Romania and 90% in Hungary. In the case of Poland, the percentage of home ownership among residents is 84.20%, although mortgage interest rates are 9%.
It is also noteworthy that the home ownership rate in Spain is 76.20%, higher than the rate recorded in countries such as France (64.10%) and Portugal (73.90%) where mortgages are cheaper. The lowest percentage is in Germany with 51.10%.