This is the first time that borrowing for housing has been so expensive… since August 2014

By The editorial staff with Belga

3 hours ago

The average interest rate on a mortgage over 10 years stood at 3.11% in February, recent data from the National Bank of Belgium (NBB) shows.

For comparison, it was just 1.43% in February last year. One of the causes is the sharp rise in inflation, which led the European Central Bank to raise interest rates in response to the turmoil in the financial markets.

The last time interest rates were this high was in August 2014 (3.12%). Subsequently, interest rates fell to unprecedented lows, with a record in the spring of 2021 (1.33%).

Early last month, it was already revealed that the number of new mortgages in February fell to its lowest level since 2007. In the first two months of this year, 32,600 mortgages were opened, around the half of the average for the same period of the last five years.