In June, Finnish households took out new holiday home loans of approximately EUR 126 million, which is 16 percent less than in the corresponding month last year, according to the Bank of Finland.
The Central Bank stated that during 2020 and 2021 there was a spike in cottage loans, which was sometimes related to the changes brought about by the Covid crisis.
Enthusiasm for buying vacation homes started to wane in the spring. For the first time in two years, new leisure mortgages returned to the pre-epidemic level, according to the bank’s figures.
However, the bank reported that compared to the pre-Covid period, new holiday home loans were still 35 percent higher in June of this year than in the corresponding month of 2019.
The average interest rate on vacation home loans rose to 1.71 percent in June. The last time it was at this level was in March 2015. The bank explained a large part of the increase in the interest rate as a result of the increase in the Euribor rate.
According to the bank, the number of new mortgages also decreased. Finnish households took out 1.9 billion euros in new home loans in June, which was 255 million euros less than in the corresponding month last year.