Europace now transacting 20% of German mortgage finance
Europace, Germany's largest online housing and personal financing transaction platform, saw the total number of deals processed on its platform rise by 27% over the first nine months to €34.4bn, more than last year's total figure for the whole year.
According to Thilo Wiegand, Europace CEO, the property financing market is in a growth phase, driven by new construction and price rises, and Europace is a prime benficiary of this. "We're seeing enormous growth. We brokered our first deal over the platform in the summer of 2000, and today, fifteen years later, nearly 20% of private building finance in Germany is being transacted over Europace.
Europace, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the listed Berlin-headquartered Hypoport group, links over 300 partners including banks, insurers and financial product intermediaries on a B2B platform with those seeking mortgage finance, and hosts more than 35,000 transactions monthly. It is a sister company of the nationwide property brokerage Dr. Klein.
The Hypoport share price, after largely moving sideways since its flotation in 2008 just before the financial crisis, has skyrocketed this year by nearly 500%.
Transaction volume in third quarter came to €11.5bn, almost repeating 2Q15’s record €11.8bn, said Europace in a press statement. Last year, the firm registered €31.6bn deals. Mortgage finance registered the highest growth, by 31% to €27.2bn, followed by personal loans (+18% to €1.4bn) and building finance (+13% to €5.8bn). All three quarters so far this year have seen transaction volume of more than €11bn, barely a year after the €9bn mark for a quarter was first breached.
REFIRE tracks the Europace EPX price index for housing in Germany carefully, based as it is on actual prices achieved in the market place on the Europace platform and not on advertised or other prices based on – perhaps - wishful thinking.
The latest reading of the EPX index shows that overall residential property prices rose in Germany by 4.71% over the twelve months to end-September. Second-hand houses rose 6.3%, apartment prices rose by 4.3%, and new-build single-family and semi-detached or terraced houses rose by 3.74%.
Actually, the index registered its first fall over the past 18 months, by 0.24%, following a drop in the single-family and semi-detached sub-segment in August. According to Wiegand, "Admittedly, it's not often we've seen prices falling for two successive months, although we did see the total index fall for five months in a row around the turn of 2013/14 before picking up steam again. So we'd hesitate to describe what we're seeing as a trend reversal. The latest figures should assuage the fears of those who fear the emergence of a price bubble in the market."