The Euribor will close January at 3.61%, just below the 3.68% in December, according to the monitoring of housing and consumption portals. The fall, the third in a row, will not cause mortgages to drop since those that have an interannual review become more expensive, as the reference is higher than last year. Those that are reviewed semiannually, which are less common, will have better luck.
The data will be confirmed by the Bank of Spain at the beginning of February, but a minimal correction will not change the effects.
For recently established mortgages, in a variable loan of 150,000 euros with Euribor 0.99% and annual review, the fee will increase from 744.85 euros, about 22 euros more per month or 264 per year, according to calculations from the iAhorro portal. Under the same conditions for a loan for 300,000 euros, it jumps to 1,489.70 euros and 43.67 euros more per month, or about 524 per year.
If the review is semiannual, the loans become cheaper. For the first case, the fee goes to 739.45 euros and becomes cheaper by 47.71 per month, or 572.57 per year. In the second case, the savings are double. "Although they are the first to suffer the increase in the price of their installments if the Euribor is on the rise, with this downward indicator they are also the mortgage holders who see their installments go down first, and in a more pronounced way," assesses the director of Mortgages of the iAhorro mortgage comparator and advisor, Simone Colombelli.
It must be taken into account that the impact of the variation in rates reduces as the loan progresses.
The gradual decrease in the Euribor, in view of the forecast of a rate cut by the European Central Bank (ECB) towards the summer, suggests a better year for those looking to get a mortgage. It reached its maximum of the cycle with 4.160% in October, today already half a point below. If rates go down, the benchmark will keep pace.
Despite the decline in prices, geopolitical risks are emerging and salaries are being monitored. "It leads us to estimate that the Euribor would remain around 3.5% during the first half of the year. From there, it would be more likely to see a progressive decrease in the indicator until it is around 3% at the end of 2024," says Estefanía González, spokesperson for the comparator Kelisto.es. The platform believes that the first drops in mortgages will come in March-April, when it begins to be compared with months of last year where it was higher.
"Normally every year starts with upward corrections in mortgage prices by banks and this year the opposite has happened: financial entities have started 2024 with drops, many of them unexpected," warns Colombelli.
