May this year brought new records in mortgage financing in Slovakia. The volume of mortgages climbed to more than €500 million and the average interest rate dropped to 3.26 percent per annum in May of this year, while a year ago it was at 3.99 percent per annum. This data stems from research of the financial company Fincentrum.
Their senior analyst Peter Világi expects interest rates to continue decreasing and as he stated for the daily Sme, the mortgage market looks as if this year’s silly season hadn’t even started. According to him, every bank strives to get as many loans as possible which also provides room for further rate cuts in loans. Last year the average monthly lending amounted to some €350 million which also indicates that Slovak clients make full use of the funding conditions banks offer. Another reason why bank loans are so popular is the persistently low real estate prices as currently, on average, they are lower by about a fifth to the prices quoted in 2008. The favourable development was evident also in smaller loans. Banks provided consumer loans worth more than €200 million monthly, while in 2013, average was €130 million a month.
