Can You Still Get Mortgages to Buy Spanish Property?

The property market in Spain has many parallels and similarities to that in the UK in that if a property is competitively priced it will sell, where there are still pockets of demand there is buoyancy in the market, agents have talked the market up to an unsustainable level, prices have fallen below what the media and government are promoting and people still hanker after owning a home in Spain, just as there is a desire for homeownership in the UK.

The only trouble is, not everyone can afford to take advantage of some of the bargains that are genuinely coming to the market in Spain because they don’t have the cash in hand to pay full asking price in cash for a Spanish property…

We’re aware that properties in the UK are not selling in part because people cannot secure mortgage financing – but is the situation the same in Spain?  Can you still get mortgages to buy Spanish property or not?  In this report we’re going to look at what property financing products are available to British buyers interested in buying a home in Spain.

On the high street in the UK you have the likes of NatWest offering Spanish mortgages for permanent and holiday homeowners.  The product is actually offered by RBS through NatWest – and the product has recently been updated to reflect changes in interest rates and terms and conditions.  The general gist of the offer on the table is a choice of a variable or a fixed rate – the former coming in at the standard variable rate (3 month Euro LIBOR + 2.00%) and currently offering a rate of 3% APR for comparison purposes.  The fixed rate is set for a year and is currently 3.70% APR for comparison purposes.  Fees are unfair in our opinion – but then, there is little competition in the market so you have to take what you can get maybe?

In terms of the LTV rate it’s generally 55% with the minimum loan amount EUR 100,000.  You need to have paid it all back by 65 – some exceptional cases can be extended to the age of 70, and your affordability is very closely assessed.  This is not an easy mortgage to necessarily secure, but then perhaps there is no such thing currently available anywhere?

Abbey, which is part of the Spanish banking group Santander, also offers mortgages to buy in Spain; they don’t make their terms and conditions known unless you apply however!  The rates are competitive and the mortgages are in euros which makes it perhaps easier to budget and plan, but you need to speak to Abbey to find out more.

There are brokers online who claim to be able to offer you more competitive financing – but you really need to get to the bottom of who the financing will be secured by, what it will be based and secured on, and never use such a company to buy your property in Spain without having a reputable layer on board first who can check out the legitimacy of the source of the money, and advise correctly on how transfers and payments should be done.

Finally, there are financing products on the market in the UK to enable you to buy a property in Spain – you just have to work hard to secure them.  But because the market does offer a real opportunity to Britons who can negotiate and haggle well, secure a good price in the face of the euro’s strength against the pound, the hard work to get a mortgage in place will be well worth it when it pays up and pays off and you have your dream home in a market that was until a year or so ago, increasingly inaccessible.