Madrid (EFE).- The twelve-month Euribor, the most widely used interest rate in Spain to calculate mortgages, maintains its strong upward trend and closes January with an average monthly rate of 3.337%, the highest since December 2008.
The rise in the indicator for January will translate into a new increase in variable mortgage payments, which can reach 3,400 euros per year.
According to data collected by EFE, in the last session of January, the Euribor rose to 3.413%, the highest daily rate since December 15, 2008.
In the average monthly rate, the Euribor closes at that 3.337%, also the highest since December 2008, a level at which the indicator has been since last November.
The rise in this January has been almost 32 basis points (in December it ended at 3.018%), and compared to the same month of 2022, it registers a rise of 3.8 points, since just one year ago it was negative (- 0.477%).
This escalation of the indicator in recent months, the largest since there are records, translates into a new rise in variable mortgage payments.
Increase of about 3,430 euros a year on an average mortgage of 150,000 euros
Thus, an average mortgage of 150,000 euros, with a term of 25 years and an interest of Euribor plus 1% that has to be reviewed with the data for January will see its fee increased by about 286 euros per month, or about 3,430 euros per year.
In the case of a credit of 300,000 euros, also with a term of 25 years and an interest of Euribor plus 1%, the fee will rise by about 570 euros per month, or more than 6,800 euros per year.
The Euribor is experiencing the most intense upward streak since its creation due to the turn in the monetary policy of the European Central Bank (ECB), which in 2022 has raised interest rates four times to combat high inflation in the euro area.
The indicator started last year at negative rates (in December 2021 it was at -0.502%) and has been climbing as the central bank raised rates to 3.018%, the highest level since December 2008.
The increase in the whole of 2022 was 3.61 percentage points, the highest for a complete year since there are records and a long way from the second (2006 with 1.138 percentage points).
The Euribor has started the year with new increases and according to experts, it will maintain this trend given the forecast that the ECB will continue to raise rates.
Just tomorrow, the agency holds a new monetary policy meeting, in which a 50 basis point rise in the price of money is expected, which would leave rates at 3%, the highest rate since 2008.
The head of HelpMyCash.com mortgages, Miquel Riera, sees it as very likely that the Euribor will continue to rise and reach between 3.5% and 4% “at the end of the first quarter of 2023 or at the beginning of the second.”
Riera explains that the evolution of the indicator depends, to a large extent, on the ECB’s policy, that if it raises rates -a strategy that it now follows to combat high inflation-, “it is more difficult for financial institutions to borrow money from it”.
Consequently, he adds, “they increase the interest that they apply to the loans that are granted between them, which is the one used to calculate the value of the Euribor.”
