Spanish housing statistics…on fire!

A few new data points on Spanish housing:

  • This year is going to be yet another record for new housing starts- 785,000! This is probably more than the whole of the rest of the EU combined! The US has about 1.7-1.8 million housing starts, so only about 2x as many as Spain even though it has about 8x the population.
  • Mortgage debt is skyrocketing and breaking all records: up 24.3% last quarter, to a total of 421 billion Euros. Consumer credit is up a more moderate 11.5% to 164 billion Euros. So total consumer debt is now 587 billion Euros.
  • 60% of mortgages are on variable rates, therefore vulnerable to any interest rate rises.

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