Mortgage signatures is one of the main macro indicators available to the property sector to analyse its evolution and state at any given time. Accordingly, the Spanish National Statistics Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, INE) provides thorough information on the market’s progress, making it possible to measure results.
Thus, according to the latest sectoral report, the number of mortgages taken out on homes increased by 4.5% last April compared to the same month in 2021 (33,423 loans), the highest figure for the month of April since 2010, when more than 50,000 mortgages were signed. These figures indicate the number of mortgages on homes has now reached 14 consecutive months of year-on-year rises.
However, although the moderation in figures is logical given the large number of transactions recorded in recent years, April’s recovery, which moderated March’s figures by more than 13 points, is the lowest year-on-year growth in residential mortgages since February 2021.
Given the total number of properties recorded at the Land Registry during April, the average amount on mortgages was €159,242, 5.1% higher than in the same month of 2021. This rise is explained by the sustained increase in house prices, which in turn is driven by the boom for purchasing residential properties and the inflationary macroeconomic context.
The autonomous communities with the highest number of mortgages on dwellings in April were the usual ones: Andalusia (6,688), Catalonia (6,141), and Madrid (5,598). Those autonomous communities with the highest annual rate of changes in the number of mortgages were Castilla-La Mancha (+29.4%), the Balearic Islands (+27.7%), and Aragon (+16.4%). The autonomous communities with the lowest annual rate of changes were Extremadura (-12.7%), Madrid (-9.5%), and the Valencian Community (-7.1%).