Average Spanish mortgage passes €178,000 for the first time
Friday, September 18, 2026 @ 8:51 PM
The average new mortgage in Spain has broken €178,000 for the first time on record, according to figures published by the National Statistics Institute (INE) on 26 August. It is the clearest sign yet that the cost of buying — and of financing that purchase — is climbing in step: house prices rose 15.2% in the year to the second quarter, and now the typical loan buyers are taking out to cover that cost has hit a new high alongside it.
The average Spanish mortgage has hit a new record, as both loan sizes and signings climb. Photo: Freepik
The record amount arrived alongside a record in activity too. Spain signed 45,907 mortgages on homes in June — the strongest June since 2010, up 10.8% on the same month last year. That took the first half of 2026 to 259,681 new mortgages, 7% more than the same period in 2025 and the highest first-half total in 16 years. The capital lent by banks over that period rose even faster, up 17.5% year on year, reflecting both more mortgages and larger ones.
| The average Spanish mortgage has climbed sharply in 2026 |
| Month |
Average mortgage |
| January |
€165,677 |
| February |
€173,280 |
| March |
€174,132 |
| April |
€173,331 |
| May |
€174,866 |
| June |
€178,365 |
Source: INE, Estadística de Hipotecas, monthly releases, January–June 2026
Interest rates are, for now, doing little to slow any of this down. The average rate on new mortgages has stayed below 3% through the first half of the year, keeping monthly repayments more manageable than the size of the loans alone would suggest — though a buyer borrowing today still needs a larger deposit and a bigger income to qualify than they would have a year or two ago, simply because both the properties and the mortgages against them cost more.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com