The average interest rate on new mortgage loans fell for the fifth consecutive month in February, to 3.91%, although it is still higher than the same month a year earlier, according to data published today by the Bank of Portugal (BdP).
Data from the banking supervisor published today on the BPStat portal show that the average interest rate on new mortgage loans rose from 3.51% in February 2023 to a maximum of 4.27% in September 2023.
Since then this figure has been falling and reached 3.91% in February, compared to 4.05% in January.
By type of negotiation, the average interest rate on new mortgage contracts fell 0.09 percentage points compared to January, to 3.72%, close to the 3.64% of the previous year.
In turn, the average interest rate on renegotiated contracts was 4.23%, compared to 4.43% in January this year and 3.32% year-on-year.
In February, the mixed rate strengthened its position as the main type of new home loans, accounting for 72.2% of the total, up from 69.4% in the previous month and 23.8% a year ago.
In turn, the predominance of variable rates fell to 24% (26.2% in January and 71.3% in February 2023) and fixed rates fell to 3.8% (4.4% in January and 4.9% in February 2023).
In February, the average monthly payment was 426 euros, an increase of 76 euros compared to the same month in 2023, but unchanged from January.
The data released today by the banking regulator adds that the six-month Euribor strengthened its share of the stock of variable-rate permanent home loans in March, which it had gained in January.
In February, the six-month Euribor accounted for 36.6% of the ‘stock’ of permanent home loans with a variable rate, followed by the 12-month Euribor (34.7%) and the three-month Euribor (24.6%).
As for early repayments of mortgage loans, these represented 0.91% of the ‘stock’ in February, after January’s 1.29% was “the second highest since the start of the statistical series in December 2021”.
