Young people and migrants are particularly suffering from the housing crisis in Catalonia, as in many other European regions. These two groups are an important part of the low-income population, who are the ones who suffer the most from this problem.

Bad times are coming for holders of variable-rate mortgages. The daily 12-month Euribor, the main reference for this type of loan for home purchases, has closed the month with an average above 2.8% (2.804%) and is heading towards 3%, according to analysts. Thus, the monthly payment for an average mortgage of 174,132 euros with Euribor plus one point, which was 833.11 euros, will rise to 900.39 euros, an increase of 67.28 euros more or 807.36 euros more per year.

The Government will extend the age of access to emancipation loans to 40 years from Monday. It is an "instrument to facilitate the payment of the down payment for a home for young people so that they can subsequently apply for a mortgage: "They encounter a barrier, a wall, which is the down payment," explained the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, at an event at the Institut Català de Finances (ICF) this Friday.

When contracting a mortgage, interested parties pay banks certain provisions that are used to pay taxes, fees, and registrations. It is normal for the bank to temporarily hold the corresponding amount and for, later, an agency to handle all the required bureaucracy. However, in this context, a situation has come to light that would have left an as-yet-unspecified number of users unprotected. This is the case of the Tecnotramit agency.

While international bodies this week called on Spain for stricter criteria for granting mortgages, the Bank of Spain has toned down the debate, assuring that it is not urgent and that if action is needed, it will be done in a “ surgical ” manner. But, at what point are we really?In theory, in Spain mortgages are limited to 80% of the lower value between the appraisal and the purchase price of the property. In practice, however, some entities finance up to 100%, especially for young people, in exchange for a higher interest rate or demanding additional guarantees. And this has a very high cost: an increase of one or two percentage points on a 25 or 40-year mortgage can end up costing tens of thousands of euros more in interest. Furthermore, unlike in other European countries, very long terms continue to be common in Spain, as they are not limited in years.And what about the rest of Europe? France, Germany, and Italy also typically limit financing to 80%, but with maximum terms of between 25 and 30 years. The United Kingdom raises the limit to 95% with a 30-year term, and the Netherlands is the most permissive case, with mortgages that can reach 100% of the property value. This comparison shows that Spain is already among the European countries with the most demanding criteria for granting real estate credit.The debate, however, is not only financial but also social. In a context of soaring housing prices and salaries that are not growing at the same rate, further tightening mortgage conditions could make it difficult for a generation that already has increasing problems to become independent to access homeownership. This time, I agree with the Bank of Spain when it says that this measure would put even more pressure on rental prices.

Mortgage lending continues to circulate – in fact, some financial institutions have warned that it is doing so unsustainably – while housing prices rise month after month. In this context, some are already noticing a difficulty in buying: households where the main residence is rented have a "limited financial capacity" to acquire a first property through a mortgage, according to the Bank of Spain. Be that as it may, the scenario shows no signs of concern in the opinion of the supervisory body, which for some months has been analyzing whether to activate any limitations on the lending criteria for high-risk mortgages that are being granted.

The daily one-year Euribor, the main reference for variable-rate mortgages, closed April with a new increase, reaching 2.848%. The average stood at 2.747%, compared to 2.143% a year ago, and a new increase is added to that of March. Consequently, this evolution, which places this reference at the levels of September 2024, means the average mortgage (173,280 euros, according to INE data from February, over 25 years) will increase its monthly installment by 55.94 euros or 671.28 annually, to 890.60 euros per month or 10,687.2 euros per year.

Catalonia surpassed 8,500 housing mortgages constituted in February for the first time since 2010 and has now accumulated 20 months of year-on-year increases, according to figures updated by the National Statistics Institute (INE) this Friday.

The Euribor continues to make mortgages more expensive, one of the consequences of the effects of the war in the Middle East. This indicator, which is the benchmark for variable-interest home loans, but also affects new ones entering the market, closed March at an average of 2.565%, with the largest monthly increase in three years after reaching 2.870% on the last day of the month. As a consequence of this trend, holders of variable-interest mortgages with annual reviews will suffer the first increase in their installments since April 2024 because this month's Euribor is higher than that of a year ago, which was 2.398%.

The Catalan Finance Institute (ICF), the public bank of the Generalitat, has granted to date 846 loans to young people aged 18 to 35 to obtain the down payment for an apartment. The average granted is 36,332 euros and an average housing price of 189,908 euros with an average age of beneficiaries of 29.4 years, according to data presented by the Secretary General of Economy and President of the ICF's governing board, Juli Fernández, and the entity's CEO, Vanessa Servera.

The US and Israeli attacks on Iran are already impacting people's wallets. The situation will worsen the longer the conflict lasts and the longer it takes to resolve the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil and gas passes. "Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow, but we do know that the risk is very high," says Javier Díaz-Giménez, a professor at IESE Business School. The problem is that we are in a context of uncertainty and volatility, adds Pedro Aznar, an economics professor at ESADE Business School.

The armed conflict in the Middle East also has financial repercussions. The Euribor, the benchmark for variable-rate mortgages, registered its largest daily increase in almost 20 years on Tuesday. This one-year indicator climbed to 2.552%, an increase of 0.185 percentage points. Normally, this benchmark fluctuates by only a few thousandths of a point daily, but this time it experienced a 7.8% rise in a single day.

The Catalan mortgage market closed 2025 with an upward surge, which may signal a change in the economic cycle. The number of mortgages granted in December reached 6,464, 25% more than a year earlier and also the highest figure since December 2009. Meanwhile, the price of these mortgages, measured by the average annual interest rate, fell after soaring in November.

For the four largest banks in Spain, 2025 has been a year of positive signs. In fact—with the exception of Banco Sabadell—CaixaBank, Banco Santander, and BBVA have once again posted record profits, mostly due to strong net interest margins and increased fee income. In total, the four institutions They add up to a historic benefit of 32.278 billion euros throughout the year. If the profits of Bankinter and Unicaja are added to that figure, the final figure is 34 billion euros.

Several banks have announced that they will tighten mortgage conditions throughout 2026. Prices will rise, and lending standards will be stricter. This shift comes after a record-breaking 2025. The official explanation cites prudence and the need to avoid future risks in the real estate market.

The 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.

Bankinter's CEO, Gloria Ortiz, continues to see "irrationality" in the mortgage market and has once again ruled out entering into any kind of price war for home loans. During the presentation of the 2025 results, in which the bank surpassed €1 billion in profit for the first time, she denounced that some institutions are selling mortgages at 2% or 2.20% when the curve swap The 30-year yield is currently around 3%.

Mortgage lending in Catalonia reached a new high in October, with 9,025 mortgage loans, the highest figure recorded for that month since 2007. However, this growth in the number of mortgages, sustained uninterrupted for the past 16 months, shows the first signs of decline. Since July 2014, every month has seen double-digit annual growth – the largest increase was in October of last year, with a rise of 52.7% – and now the number of mortgage loans has grown by only 1.3% compared to October of last year.

As Spain prepares to close a record year for mortgage signings, potentially exceeding 500,000 across the country—levels not seen in fifteen years—a changing cycle is beginning with rising interest rates. "Most financial institutions are raising interest rates on home loans" because no further rate cuts are expected in the short term from the European Central Bank (ECB), explains the comparison website HelpMyCash.

After Malta, Spain has the cheapest mortgages in the eurozone. This is one of the factors contributing to the constant rise in housing prices, as supply is growing at a much slower pace than demand. Comparing the average interest rate for home purchases in August, the latest published figure for Spain is 2.69%, well below the eurozone average of 3.31% and the rates in countries like Germany (3.71%), France (3.01%), and Italy (3.28%). Demand for home loans is growing rapidly, according to the latest Bank of Spain survey for the second quarter.