Czech mortgages could top 3% by year's end

Mortgage loan rates are on the rise in the Czech Republic, having bottomed out during 2016. Having fallen to just 1.77 percent, they had risen to 2.2 percent in December, a trend that is expected to continue. Some market observers are now predicting that rates could will rise more quickly in 2018 than they did in 2017. With the Czech National Bank likely to continue raising its primary interest rates for lenders, mortgage rates will not go untouched. "The pace of rate rise will probably be higher than last year with the average rate most likely exceeding 3 percent," said Jiří Feix, chairman of the board at Hypoteční banka, according to Novinky.cz. The total volume of loans will most likely fall in 2018, just as in 2017, when the CZK 224 billion that was handed out in mortgages fell CZK 2bn short of the record set in 2016.