Portuguese are increasingly settling housing loans earlier.
The dynamism of the Portuguese real estate sector, coupled with low interest rates and the improvement of the national economic situation, is now also having an effect on prepayments of housing loans. The number of repayments before the deadline increased by almost 30% in one year, with more than 85 thousand in 2016, for a total amount of € 3.2 billion. And close to 70% of these were used to pay off the contracted financing. In several cases, the goal is to apply for new credit.
The Retail Banking Monitoring Report for 2016, recently published by the Bank of Portugal (BdP), shows that there were 28% more reimbursements than in 2015. This increase was due "exclusively to total early repayments, a Since the number of early partial repayments has decreased between 2015 and 2016. "
About 68% of advance payments were total, more than 58% in 2015. Almost a quarter of total repayments were below 13,091 euros, while half were below 35,918 euros.
According to the financial sector regulator, "the increase in total early repayments on mortgage lending may be associated with the greater dynamism of the real estate market, since home exchange often involves full repayment of existing housing loans and Another contract to finance the new housing ".
And despite the boom in the mortgage lending business, prepaid loans ended up having a greater weight than new hires. Last year, 57,912 loans were signed for the purchase of a home, for a total of 5.5 billion euros. Increases of 34.2% and 39.6% over the previous year, respectively.
"The early repayments and maturities in 2016 exceeded the amount granted in new contracts, which translated into a reduction in the overall value of the portfolio at the end of the year (€ 88.4 billion, compared with € 90.5 billion Million euros in 2015) ", stresses the Bank of Portugal.
News: Idealista