Mortgages for non-residents. What they are and how they work

According to a report published by the National Institute of Statistics last November, 17% of property transactions in our country belonged to foreigners who do not reside in Spain. These data demonstrate the interest of foreigners in vacation homes and mortgages for non-residents.

Mortgages for non-residents are loans that financial institutions grant to people who have their tax residence in another country and who, therefore, do not live permanently in the country where they buy the property. Generally, foreigners want to buy a property in our country, usually a second home, and request financing from a Spanish entity.

Currently, the capital lent in mortgages for non-residents usually does not exceed 70% of the appraisal or sale value of the property in question. This percentage can even drop to 50%, depending on the applicant's profile and property characteristics. That is why these are mortgage loans in which the applicant must have significant savings.

As you can imagine, the motivations for buying a home in Spain are the quality of life, the sun, or good connections with their countries of origin, but do you know who buys more houses in our country? And the type of home they are looking for?

According to data from the College of Registrars of Property, the British are the non-residents who bought the most homes in our country in 2015 (19.8%), followed by the French (8.1%), Germans (7.6%), Belgians (6.4%); Swedes (5.5%) and Italians (5.3%).

The buyer profile is that of a person between 50 and 60 years old, married and with children, with a high level of education and an annual income above 60,000 euros.

These buyers are looking for relatively large houses. According to another report, 33% of all homes purchased by foreigners in 2013 were over 100 m2. And 77% were between 80 and more than 100m2. Barely 5% of the acquired properties had less than 40 square meters. Dutch, Swedes, and Danes are the ones who bought more properties: between 45% and 51% of those acquired by any of these nationalities were over 100 square meters.

Finally, the areas that interest them the most are the most tourist-attractive areas of our country: Costa del Sol, the Balearic Islands, Valencia, and the Canary Islands.

For more information, visit our Quick Guide to Mortgages for Foreigners in Spain.