Brussels, 23 January 2017 

The European Mortgage Federation (EMF) has today published its Quarterly Review of European Mortgage Markets for the third quarter (Q3) of 2016.

Produced in cooperation with the Federation’s national experts, the Quarterly Review presents the latest short-term developments in mortgage and housing markets across the EU. The publication provides expert analytical commentary together with data tables and charts on the following key indicators:

§   Mortgage interest rates;

§   Total outstanding residential mortgage lending;

§   Gross and net residential mortgage lending; and

§   Nominal house price indices.

What is more, this edition of the Quarterly Review includes some new features: in addition to an update of the thresholds in the existing charts relating to house prices, a new chart showing the boxplots of the quarter on quarter growth distribution of house prices in the sample has been added.

Overview of Q3 2016:

In light of the ongoing political uncertainty both within and outside Europe, the third quarter of 2016 has provided an aggregate housing and mortgage market picture which is in line with the previous quarters of 2016. In the EU house prices continued their upwards trend, on an aggregate level, while the outstanding mortgage lending figure in our sample, after having reached the peak at the end of 2015, slightly contracted by 1.9% since then. Interest rates continued their downward path as well and the unweighted average rate of our sample lies for the first time below 2.5%.

Luca Bertalot, EMF-ECBC Secretary General

The full Quarterly Review – Q3 2016 and the archive of previous editions (back to Q3 1998) are available on the EMF website here.

Contact:

Daniele Westig

Economic Adviser

Tel: +32 2 285 40 40

dwestig@hypo.org

Notes to the Editor:

1. Established in 1967, the European Mortgage Federation (EMF) is the voice of the European mortgage industry, representing the interests of mortgage lenders and covered bond issuers at European level. The EMF provides data and information on European mortgage markets, which were worth over 7 trillion EUR at the end of 2015. As of January 2017, the EMF has 17 members across 14 EU Member States as well as a number of observer members.

2. In 2004 the EMF founded the European Covered Bond Council (ECBC), a platform bringing together covered bond issuers, analysts, investment bankers, rating agencies and a wide range of interested stakeholders. As of January 2017, the ECBC has over 100 members across over 30 active covered bond jurisdictions and many different market segments. ECBC members represent over 95% of covered bonds outstanding, which were worth nearly 2.5 trillion EUR at the end of 2015.

3. In June 2014, the EMF and the ECBC came together to form the Covered Bond & Mortgage Council (CBMC), which replaced the European Mortgage Federation as the legal name under which both entities operate, although in practice, both the EMF and ECBC brands are maintained and used to identify the two areas of focus within the CBMC’s scope.

4. The Covered Bond Label Foundation (CBLF) was established in 2012 by the EMF-ECBC. The Covered Bond Label website became fully operational on the 1st of January 2013, with the first Labels being effective since then. The website features the Harmonised Transparency Template (HTT) and 14 National Transparency Templates, published by 82 issuers disclosing information on 98 labelled cover pools across 16 jurisdictions. The Covered Bond Label website currently provides issuance data on over 4,200 covered bonds, amounting to a total face value of over 1.4 trillion EUR, out of which over 2,000 covered bonds already include information on the Liquidity Coverage Requirement (LCR).

5. For the latest updates from the EMF-ECBC, follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube or visit the EMF-ECBC blog.