Rising prices, from energy to food, and rising interest rates continue to cause changes in consumer behavior. Looking into the year that is about to begin, financial analysts predict that the real estate market will suffer from the effects of these increases this year. Thus, financial sources claim that in 2023 there will be a drop in the number of transactions from -11% to -15%.
Analysts say that the main reason for such a drop is directly related to a reduction in the disposable income of buyers as a result of a possible new increase in interest rates and high inflation, spending on other types of consumption, which reduces the part of their wallet that they can allocate for investment in housing.
Despite the recession and inflation, in the province of Pontevedra, 4,421 residential mortgage loans were signed in the first three quarters of last year, which is 222 more than in the previous year and 42% more than in the same period of 2019 (in which 3,112 were registered).
According to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), 118,509 euros is the average amount reached by mortgages signed in 2022 in the province, which is 11% more than in 2019.
95% of mortgages were issued by banks, and although provincial statistics do not provide a more detailed breakdown, at the national level, 70% of mortgages signed in September were fixed-rate.
According to these statistics, at the national level in July 2022, the historical maximum of fixed-rate mortgages was reached at 75.4%, and in the last month for which data are available (September 2022), this weight has already decreased to 68.2%.
It should be borne in mind that the mortgage loans reported by NIS were issued on average 45 days earlier. Despite these data, financial sources assure us that in the last few months of 2022, the same pattern was observed when fixed mortgages lost ground in relation to variable mortgages.
One of the main financial institutions and real estate companies in Spain and Portugal, Tecnotramit, which has a network of 34 offices throughout the Iberian Peninsula, is in the same row.
Thus, the CEO of Tecnotramit and the president of the National Association of Real Estate Agents (ANAI) Vicens Hernandez Reche assures that, although «macro indicators of the real estate sector continue to demonstrate stable behavior, which confirms the stable nature of the Spanish housing market, there will be some general slowdown in the sector in 2023».