German Mortgage Stock With First Decline in 7 Years
The outstanding volume of German mortgages declined for the first time since 2016 in January 2023. It is down €1.6bn MoM, which is also the largest decline since 2014. Compared to the year-ago period German mortgage stock is, however, still growing at an above-average rate of 5.2% YoY.
We had suspected negative growth in January due to a combination of cyclical and seasonal weaknesses. January is by the far the slowest month of the year which this year is acerbated by the almost complete lockdown of the mortgage market since the ECB started raising rates in July 2022.