Mortgage activity in Spain increased 32% in November

With 32% month-on-month growth, November was an exceptionally strong month for Spanish property.

As the end-of-year stats from 2016 roll in, it is increasingly evident that Spain enjoyed a successful year on many fronts. From tourism to the wider economy, things improved dramatically in 2016, and few industries have distilled this positivity more clearly than the property industry.

According to the Spanish government’s central statistics unit, November saw a 32% increase in mortgage approvals compared to the same month in 2015, with a total of 25,413 granted…

This in itself is an extremely encouraging statistic, but taken as part of the wider trend then the signs look even stronger – the first 11 months of 2016 recorded 15% more mortgage approvals than during the same period in 2015, reaching 260,581.

For the entire year, that figure is likely to increase by an additional 20,000 once December’s figures are factored in.

Together, that would put the annual number of mortgage approvals in Spain in 2016 above 280,000, and while it is rather difficult – given the boom-bust nature of the country’s real estate sector since the millennium – to say with any certainty what a “healthy” annual figure is, there is growth right now, and it is steady growth.

So consider this: during the peak of Spain’s most recent property boom, more than 100,000 mortgage approvals were granted for many months between 2005 and 2007. In contrast, the depths of the post-recession slump saw August 2013 register just 12,000 monthly mortgage approvals.

That higher sum proved unsustainable, and the lower remains undesirable. Hence, a settled, steadily increasing figure somewhere in-between seems just about right, right now…