Mortgages continue to grow despite the rise in average interest rates
The number of mortgage loans grows by 7.45% and November registers its highest activity in 19 years
BarcelonaThe mortgage market maintains its momentum and continues to show very high numbers. While mortgage originations in Catalonia have grown at a double-digit rate for almost all of 2025, registering the largest increase in October (+0.26%), November recovered some of the lost momentum: the number of mortgages grew by 7.45%, reaching 7. Following the most dynamic October in the last eighteen years, November has now seen the highest activity in the last nineteen. The Catalan mortgage market has now experienced seventeen consecutive months of growth.
These November figures, according to the latest Mortgage Statistics published this Monday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), have a particular characteristic: the average interest rate on mortgages granted in Spain has experienced a significant increase. Specifically, the average stood at 2.97%, representing a 5.6% increase compared to the previous month. The rate for fixed-rate mortgages was 2.94%, while the rate for variable-rate mortgages, linked to the Euribor – the average interest rate applied by European banks – once again exceeded 3%.
What is the explanation?
It should be noted that most mortgage loans are at a fixed rate and that this mortgage dynamism is driven by the decrease in mortgage prices over the last year: the average interest rate a year ago was 3.26%, and in May 2025 it reached 2.91%. With this upward trend again, even considering current rates sufficiently low, experts predict that this will begin to be noticeable at the end of the year.
However, beyond the December figure, Ricard Garriga, CEO of broker Trioteca mortgage lenders predict a very strong start to the year in January: "Although it's too early to make predictions, 2026 could match or even surpass the 2025 figures." Another factor to consider when assessing the mortgage market's performance is that home sales are at record levels, and prices are expected to continue rising. This could create a push to buy now rather than wait for housing and interest rates to become even more expensive. More and more expensive loans in Spain
Across Spain, mortgages granted grew even more than in Catalonia, returning to double-digit growth: +12.53%, reaching 43,319 mortgages. The average mortgage loan in Catalonia decreased slightly: from €190,000 last year – the third highest value in the entire historical series – to €187,997. In contrast, across Spain as a whole, the average has increased: from €167,080 in October to €170,770 in November.
"We are still at the highest figure of the last fifteen years and, most importantly, we are maintaining a clearly upward trend. If we compare the first eleven months of 2025 with the same period of the previous year, the accumulated increase in mortgages is 17.9%," Garriga points out.
