As we said, the current interest on mortgages is very low. And it is necessary to remember that we come from two price wars; one in the fixed rate sector and the other in the variable rate sector. Below we show a summary chronology of the most outstanding milestones of recent years.
Years 2015 and 2016: price war on fixed mortgages. Spanish financial institutions begin to offer products with interest from 2% to 20 years or even from 1.50% for shorter terms.
Year 2017: stagnation of interest. Banks slow that general decline and keep fixed rates to a minimum, while choosing not to touch variables.
First three quarters of 2018: price war on variable mortgages. Encouraged by the rise in the Euribor, banks reduce the spreads of their variable rate loans and, in some cases, put them below 0.90%.
Last quarter of 2018 and first months of 2019: interest rate rise. The controversy over the IAJD and the imminent approval of the new mortgage law leads banks to raise the interest on their mortgages, both fixed and variable rates.
Since mid-March 2019: reductions in fixed rates. After the announcement of the European Central Bank (ECB) to postpone the rise in interest, various entities begin to lower their fixed mortgages.
October 2019: more than a third of variable mortgages become more expensive. Various entities, mostly small and online, took advantage of the beginning of the last quarter of the year to raise the spreads of these products and / or to increase their commissions or initial interests. This reveals that banks want to increase the low margins they obtain with these loans and, also, that their clients opt for fixed rates.
March 2020: the coronavirus crisis begins. The Euribor has been trading higher since then, although for now it remains negative. It remains to be seen how this affects the rates applied in the following months.