Kutxabank withdraws the fixed mortgage from the window. The Basque group, with this decision, has become the first Spanish bank to hide this product to promote the sale of variable mortgages in the face of the increase in the Euribor. However, sources close to the entity assure this newspaper that despite removing this type of loan from the shop window and under Kutxabank’s objective of making “a tailor-made suit” for each client, this product continues to exist in the branches for those who demand it together with mixed-rate mortgages.
Currently, Kutxabank he only keeps the variable mortgage in his shop window, for which it offers at its lowest price (with bonuses) an Euribor plus differential of 0.79% the first year and, from the second, 0.64%. The variable APR remains at 2.14%.
These latest loans, the mixed type, are taking center stage in recent months among users who are fleeing from fixed-rate mortgages, since the sector has made interest rates more expensive to discourage their sale, and who fear the variables in the face of the escalation that is having the Euribor. In fact, Banco Santander recovered mixed-rate mortgages in its shop window two months ago in the face of increased demand.
Since the beginning of last June, mortgage experts, especially intermediaries of this type of credit and companies dedicated to the reunification of loans, have warned that the marketing of fixed-rate mortgages by some Spanish entities will soon come to an end. .
First notices
Negotiating Agency, fintech of the Reacciona Group, dedicated to mortgage brokerage, published in early July the mortgage prospects for the second half of the year and then indicated that the bank will stop marketing fixed-rate real estate loans at the end of this year. The first step will be, as they pointed out, to eliminate them from the showcase (as Kutxabank has already done), then, and although they are still in the catalogue, they will no longer be marketed in branches in a commitment to variables.
“In the next six months we will witness a gradual decline in the subscription of mortgages at fixed rates as they increase in price, which Negotiating Agency anticipates that it will reach 5%, a rate from which they will cease to be competitive, so they will lose steam in favor of mixed and variable. And not only because of its price, but also because the closer the Euribor is to its ceiling, the greater the expectation of future decreases in variable-rate installments,” the company assured.
Likewise, the mortgage broker Gibobs also points to the same scenario: the end of fixed-rate mortgages. “Entities with which we collaborate have told us that, in the month of July, their mortgages offered at a fixed rate will become more expensive and they will not even offer this product to their potential clients,” they assert.
user demand
Despite the fact that all the forecasts point to a lower demand and sale of fixed-rate mortgages, at the moment this type of product continues to be the most demanded by customers, despite the fact that the average interest offered by banks has grown more than one percentage point in recent months. According to the latest data published by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), at the end of May, 72.8% of the mortgages that were constituted in Spain were fixed, however, they experienced a fall compared to April, when they were the 75.3%.
The Euribor reached 1.344% on Monday, marking another new record not seen since April 2012, compared to -0.501% in which it was in December.
Facebook
Twitter
Linkedin