Prague, 15 May 2024 - Banks and building societies granted mortgage loans worth almost CZK 22 billion in April this year. Their volume increased by 20% month-on-month compared to March. However, April activity is usually weaker, so this year's development was all the more favourable and confirms the growing interest in mortgages that began at the beginning of this year. In year-on-year terms, the volume of mortgages granted was more than 100% higher in April, compared with 45% year-on-year growth in March. This strengthening of the year-on-year dynamics also confirms the strong activity in April, although the weaker April of last year also played a role. The average mortgage rate for new loans continued to fall in April, reaching 5.10% after 5.19% in March. The average mortgage size increased to 3.6 million. The information is based on data from the CBA Hypomonitor, which captures data from all domestic banks and building societies providing mortgage loans.

The volume of mortgages granted accelerated in April

Banks and building societies granted mortgages to households in the volume of CZK 21.9 billion in April, according to the CBA Hypomonitor. The volume of mortgages granted thus increased by 20.4% month-on-month. Taking into account the traditional seasonality, the increase would be even higher, as April is usually weaker compared to March. The double-digit month-on-month growth thus confirms the recovery in mortgage activity at the beginning of the year. Year-on-year mortgage growth in April thus picked up again to over 100%, but this was partly due to relatively weaker activity in April 2023. This year's April mortgage origination volume was already roughly on a par with April 2020, although the number of mortgages originated was still a quarter lower.

"In the first four months of 2024, we recorded a year-on-year increase not only in the number of concluded contracts, but also a much more significant increase in the volumes provided, when the average mortgage framework increased by CZK 800 thousand. The mortgage volume increased by more than CZK. This change was mostly reflected in mortgages for the purchase of real estate. This shows that people who had postponed the purchase of their own home in the past years due to high interest rates have now returned to their original plans in anticipation of a fall in interest rates," says Jakub Schmid, Director of the Credit Division of Fio banka.

Table 1: Summary of mortgage origination volumes and average interest rates for April 2024

	Volume (bln. CZK)	Number	Rate (%)
	Volume (bln. CZK)	Number	Rate (%)
Total	21,9	6 301	5,09
New loans	18,8	5 212	5,10
of which:
at buy	15,5	4 141	5,08
at construction	2,5	766	5,08
other	0,8	305	5,43
Refinanced fron another institution	2,5	868	5,03
Refinanced internally	0,7	221	5,06
Source: ČBA Hypomonitor

The volume of actual new mortgages granted without refinancing reached CZK 18.8 billion in April after CZK 15.4 billion in March. This represents a month-on-month increase of CZK 3.3 billion, i.e. 21.6%. The volume of refinanced loans (internally or from another institution) amounted to CZK 3.2 billion. The share of refinanced loans in the total volume of mortgages granted was 14.5% in April, the lowest level since the end of 2022. The average for the last 6 months is 16.1%. The number of new mortgages originated reached 5,212, the highest since May 2022. Compared to April 2020, the number of mortgages is still 14% lower. The average monthly number of new mortgages last year was slightly below 3.4k, while in 2020 it was around 6.7k and in the exceptionally strong year of 2021 it reached 9.5k.

"The interest of Česká spořitelna's clients in mortgages is steadily growing and confirms the continuing recovery of the mortgage market, although we do not expect rates to fall below 4.5% this year, rather we expect them to remain in the 4.5% - 5% range," says Petra Skrbková, who is responsible for the mortgage offer at Česká spořitelna.

The average mortgage rate fell further and is the lowest since June 2022

The interest rate on actual new mortgage loans fell further from 5.19% in March to 5.10%, the rate of the month-on-month decline was thus lower than in previous months. This development is attributable to volatile market interest rates, which started to rise again in mid-March and reached their highest level this year as a result of waning rate cut expectations from foreign central banks. Realized interest rates, as opposed to bid prices, reflect the actual real interest rate on signed mortgage contracts. Offering rates have also fallen noticeably below 6% as a result of recent developments in market interest rates, and in limited cases there are also offers below 5%.

Chart 1: Average mortgage rate - new business

Mortgage rates are reacting with a lag of several months mainly to the development of market interest rates for longer maturities. They are influenced by a number of factors - not only the expected development of CNB base rates, but also the inflation outlook, economic developments and the dynamics of similar interest rates abroad. The aforementioned market interest rates for longer maturities [1] started to decline last October due to growing market expectations of rate cuts by major central banks, but these expectations turned around again in March this year, when market rates started to rise again after several months. This development has partly closed the space for mortgage rates to fall more quickly, although markets are currently volatile and market rates have been falling again slightly in the last two weeks. Compared to last month, they are roughly at a similar level, and their average April value is roughly less than a percentage point below the average for last year.

[1] These are mainly long-term interest rate swaps (IRS), which reflect the cost of money at longer maturities, such as 5 to 10 years.

Average mortgage size reaches new record level

The average mortgage size continued to grow in April, from CZK 3.44 million to CZK 3.6 million. This is a new maximum level, which also surpassed the previous record set in November 2021 of CZK 3.46 million. CZK. House prices were 6% higher at the end of last year than in the last quarter of 2021. However, the gradual decline in mortgage rates or the relaxation of macro-prudential income limits by the CNB also makes it possible to achieve a higher mortgage.

"The growth in the average mortgage is due to several factors, firstly, the higher need for financing due to higher property prices, which despite their slight decline last year are higher than they were at the end of 2021. The gradual decline in interest rates accompanied by rising household wages has also played a role, which has also enabled applicants to achieve a higher mortgage level," says Jakub Seidler, chief economist at the Czech Banking Association.

The scenarios of the evolution of the monthly repayment for different mortgage maturities are shown in Table 2. It shows that an increase in mortgage rates by one percentage point means an increase in the monthly instalment of approximately CZK 1,500 to CZK 2,000 for an average mortgage size. Compared to the 2% interest rate that was common on the market in earlier years, the current mortgage rate means an increase in the monthly payment for an average mortgage of approximately CZK 6,000.The payment for a mortgage of CZK 1 million with a 30-year maturity at current interest rates is around CZK 5,500.The table is available in the xls file attached on the CBA Hypomonitor website.

Table 2: Average monthly mortgage payment by length of repayment and interest rate

Average size of new mortage in CZK:				3 600 945
Average interest rate in %:		2,0	3,0	4,0	5,10	6,0	7,0
				Monthly instalment:
Mortage maturity in years:	15	22 149	23 769	25 459	27 218	27 566	30 937
	20	17 412	19 089	20 857	22 715	23 085	26 685
	25	14 589	16 322	18 167	20 121	20 511	24 326
	30	12 722	14 511	16 432	18 477	18 886	22 899

Source: ČBA

Note: the coloured column corresponds to the interest rate of the last CBA Hypomonitor, other rates are illustrative

Mortgage market activity fell by a quarter in the whole year 2023

In the whole year 2023, banks and building societies granted mortgage loans in the volume of CZK 150 billion, of which net new loans without refinancing amounted to CZK 124 billion. This was a year-on-year decline of 24%. This is mainly due to the fact that the first half of 2022 was still strong in terms of mortgage originations and the higher comparative base from this period is thus affecting the year-on-year comparison. As a result, there were 50% fewer mortgages originated year-on-year in the first half of 2023 and over 50% more in the second half of 2023. Compared to the pre-pandemic years 2017-2019, the volume of mortgages granted in 2023 was roughly one-third lower;

Chart 2:Annual volume and number of mortgages granted in the years 2021 to 2023

Source: CBA Hypomonitor

CBA publishes new aggregate statistics for the entire banking market
The Czech Banking Association publishes new aggregate statistics from the housing market in cooperation with its member banks. These are mainly the volumes and numbers of newly granted and refinanced mortgages and the respective interest rate. These statistics are published by the CBA in aggregate form for the entire banking sector on a regular basis around the middle of each month. All domestic banks and building societies providing mortgages in the Czech Republic participate in the survey. The data are available from January 2020 in the attached file on the website www.cbaonline.cz, where the relevant statistics can also be found separately for banks and building societies. The above figures are for the sector as a whole, which can also be viewed in a simple graphical form on the cbamonitor.cz.

Methodology of the CBA Hypomonitor
The CBA Hypomonitor divides mortgage loans granted by banks and building societies to households into several categories in order to distinguish new loans from refinanced or internal refixations. New loans are then reported in categories according to the purpose of the loan:

1. New loans
These are loans whose full volume enters the economy for the first time. This category does not include loan consolidations or loan refinancing. It is divided into three categories:

Purchase of property
Construction of property - including renovation of property
Other new arrangements - only new loans that are not related to the purchase or construction of property, e.g. US mortgages, settlement of cohabitation, repayment of purchase price, settlement of inheritance share, settlement of cooperative share, etc.

2. Refinanced loans from another financial institution

Are loans that are the result of refinancing one or more loans from a financial institution other than the reporting financial institution. Irrespective of the amount refinanced and irrespective of the amount of any increase, the total amount of the newly originated loan is reported in this category.

3. Increased or internally refinanced loans

There are loans that were already part of the reporting entity's portfolio in the previous reporting period, and during the reporting period, any of the following changes occurred to them:

increase in the agreed amount
there were such changes that the original loan was refinanced/transferred to a new loan within the reporting entity. This is a truly new contract, not, for example, just a new arrangement within the refixation of an existing contract. Therefore, the volume of such loans in the CBA statistics is lower compared to "other new arrangements" in the statistics of the Czech National Bank.

The following banks and building societies provide data for the CBA Hypomonitor: Air Bank, Banka Creditas, Česká spořitelna, ČSOB, ČSOB Stavební spořitelna, Fio banka, Hypoteční banka, Komerční banka, mBank, Modrá pyramida, MONETA Money Bank, MONETA Stavební spořitelna, Oberbank, Raiffeisen stavební spořitelna, Raiffeisenbank, Stavební spořitelna České spořitelna, UniCredit Bank.

CBA Hypomonitor: market revived noticeably in April

Chart 1: Average mortgage rate - new business

Chart 2:Annual volume and number of mortgages granted in the years 2021 to 2023

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