Ibercaja enters to compete with online banking in terms of mortgages. The Aragonese entity has launched its new fixed-rate credit for the purchase of housing, in a promotion that will be valid until August, with one of the lowest interest rates on the market and that is close to those only offered by banks up to now one hundred percent digital, the only ones that can afford such low prices by supporting less structure costs.
The bank thus intensifies even more to fixed, whose rates have been falling rapidly for three years. A battle that, in addition, the bank has intensified in the midst of a pandemic to try to boost demand after the disaster experienced in the central months of last year, coinciding with the absolute confinement.
Ibercaja has launched its new fixed-line mortgage, in the 20-year stretch, knocking down prices. The entity offers a TIN of 1.3% and an APR of 1.5%, with a bonus for linking products, and the requirement of a payroll starting at 2,500 euros per month. Until now, only digital entities such as Openbank (from ), Evo Banco (from ) and MyInvestor (from AndBank) have competed at these prices. However, the new mortgage from the Zaragoza-based entity subtly improves the offer compared to the one that these three banks maintain in the showcase.
In fact, MyInvestor mortgages have always been characterized as being among the most competitive, since, unlike their comparables, they are the only ones that do not require product ties, but require borrowers who want to benefit from their prices to have an income monthly from 4,000 euros.
The new offer from the Aragonese bank marks a turning point compared to traditional entities, which do not end up reaching such low rates.
Record figures
The entity’s campaign comes at a time of full mortgage fever, still far from resembling the years of the real estate boom, before the 2008 crisis, but which has set a record in the months of February and March. Specifically, according to data from the Bank of Spain, the entities that operate in our country lent , thus registering the best February in the last eleven years. A month later, in March, the financing granted for this purpose reached 5,729 million euros, a . In fact, several entities, such as Bankinter or Sabadell, set a record for new production in the month of March. According to various sources in the financial sector, this good trend will continue to be recorded in the coming quarters.
The pandemic has led to a greater demand for mortgages, especially from the last quarter of 2020, on the one hand due to the greater savings of families due to the closure of the economy -which left lower consumption- and the fear of the effects of the crisis; on the other, due to historically low rates, and also due to a lower rise in housing prices.
Despite the fact that the brick continued to become more expensive in the midst of the health crisis, the smallest increase in the last five years.
At the end of a stage
In the case of the commercialized types, they reached the bottom last December. Specifically, the average interest rate at which banks sold their mortgages (a set of variable, fixed and mixed) in the last month of the year stood at 1.67% APR, a level not seen since the national supervisor compiled statistics. However, the average marketing prices have seen a rise in March, coinciding with the greater demand, .
But this golden age of fixed mortgages may have the months numbered. Sources in the financial sector doubt that there is much room for a drop in this type of loan because long-term rates are not only not falling, but have actually risen a bit. Also, these same sources ensure that if the world of fixed rates rises, there will be a new movement towards variable interest rates.
The Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), attached to the European Central Bank (ECB), has alerted European banks in recent years to the danger of making fixed-rate mortgages so cheap in the face of high competition because . In fact, currently, the average price at which European banks sell mortgages is 1.58% APR, 0.15 percentage points below the average for Spanish entities.
The variable, decreases
The rise of fixed-rate mortgages is a reality that is evident in the new production of these loans. According to the data collected by the Spanish Mortgage Association (AHE), only 30% of the new loans that were formalized last February, the last month for which there is data, are at a variable rate. Mixed mortgages represent 22.7% and those formalized completely at a fixed rate rise to 47.3%. These percentages show how, in a matter of just six years, the trend has turned around, also coinciding with the greater willingness of banks to offer the fixed rate, since the Euribor entered negative territory in 2016. Based on the data from 2015, 62.9% of the mortgages that were formalized were at a variable rate; 31.5% to mixed, and only 5.7% were contracted then to fixed. This volume was even more testimonial in 2012, when new fixed-line real estate loans only represented 0.9% of the total, compared to 77.8% of the variables.
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