Mortgage lending continues to climb in spain

Photo: Yngvil Osdal Runde

Mortgage lending climbed in Spain last year, as the market continued to recover.

Lending rose 7.1 per cent in October 2015, according to figures from the National Institute of Statistics, with 19,195 new mortgages signed.

The figures actually mark a slowdown in the rate of growth, with an increase of 20 per cent recorded in September 2015, although seasonal cooling may have been a factor in the weaker month's results. Indeed, lending has now grown for 17 months in a row in Spain, with October 2015 marking the only month of single-digit increases since the trend began.

As well as the market's overall recovery in the last year and a half, the INE figures also confirm the popularity of the Balearics and the Canary Islands in the country's rebound from recession. Both sets of islands have enjoyed some of the strongest price growth in the wake of the financial crash and here recorded what Spanish Property Insight has dubbed "spectacular" growth: the Balearics led the rise in lending, with a growth in approvals of 62 per cent, followed by the Basque Country (up 44 per cent) and the Canaries (up 33 per cent).

The average value of loans issued also rose - by 11 per cent, year-on-year - to reach €111,711.

Just as the market has recovered significantly, though, there is still a long way for the recovery to go: the INE figures confirm that mortgage levels remain around 85 per cent lower than the levels recorded at the market's pre-crisis peak.