Mortgage contract signings in Malaga hold up much better than average across Spain

The number of property loans on homes fell by 2.5% in the province, compared to a drop of more than 20% in the country as a whole

Cristina Vallejo

Malaga

Friday, 1 September 2023, 16:48

The housing sales figures for the month of June that were published in early August had predicted that the mortgage prices made public on Thursday would not be good but a surprise was in store. The prfoperty loan market for Malaga province has been more favourable than expected and also better than the country as a whole.

The June figures are the best since November 2022 and represent practically 30% of all those registered in the region. During the recent summer month, 1,977 loans were registered on homes in Malaga, a figure that is 17.25% higher than that of May and which is just 2.56% lower than in the same month of 2022.

Meanwhile, across Spain as a whole, 33,478 mortgages were signed on homes in June, which equates to a drop of almost 22% compared to the same month last year. But the May figures for Spain for 2022 and 2023 are practically the same. Also, in Andalucía, there were 7,043 mortgages subscribed to in June, which represents a drop of almost 1% compared to May; in relation to June 2022, the figures are down by 12.3%.

The June mortgage figures signed in Malaga contrast with those of sales that same month: in June 3,046 transactions were carried out, which was 15% below May’s figures and 21.5% lower than in June 2022. It is too early to say what is the exact cause but it comes after twenty consecutive months of Euribor climbs.

In the first half of 2022, in Malaga, 54% of sales operations were financed with mortgages; this year the figure is 55.6% . In Spain as a whole, 71% of transactions were paid with mortgages in 2022; a year later that proportion has fallen to 64.4%. It comes as the average interest rate in Spain, of 3.19%, is at its highest level since April 2017.

One interpretation according to Juan Villén, mortgage director at idealistic, is that the figures reflect a strongly slowed mortgage activity due to the sharp rise in rates. In his opinion, this "forces out those families with tighter incomes" from the mortgage market.

In June 2022 the average value of home loans was just over 185,000 euros in Malaga province. This year, it has decreased by about 10%, to 167,200 euros. Across Spain, the figure has remained practically unchanged at around 144,000 euros.

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