EMF Publishes Quarterly Review of European Mortgage & Housing Markets Q4 2025 Housing Affordability: Mortgages for Older Borrowers
The European Mortgage Federation (EMF) is delighted to announce the publication of its Quarterly Review of European Mortgage & Housing Markets for the fourth and final quarter of 2025.
Produced in cooperation with the Federation’s national experts, the Quarterly Review provides the latest short-term developments in mortgage and housing markets across the European Union (EU).
Quarterly Focus: Lending into retirement & senior buyers
Maintaining the focus on the questions of affordability, we bring the discussion full circle for Q4 2025 by looking at the housing finance challenges of Europe’s ageing population.
European mortgage markets are largely designed with working-age borrowers, in mind, however as Europe’s population ages, new borrowing tools are needed to unlock accumulated house price appreciation to support meagre pensions or to help children onto the property ladder. Older borrowers face a number of hurdles: fixed or low incomes make it harder to qualify for traditional mortgages, housing stock is often poorly suited to their accessibility needs, and ongoing costs like maintenance and property taxes strain limited budgets. While products such as lifetime mortgages, home reversion plans, and equity-release schemes exist to bridge this gap, they bring their own challenges around prudential standards, consumer protection, and fairness — and their availability varies considerably across European countries. The details of these national schemes can be found below. We are delighted to feature an overview of the the Korean reverse mortgages market and how it offers an alternative “stay-in place” strategy for older borrowers, written by Kyung-Hwan Kim (CEO, the Korean Housing Finance Corporation) and Yoon Su Kim (Head, Reverse Mortgage Department, KHFC). Indeed, in 2007, Korea launched a government-led reverse mortgage program called “Home Pension” to address the inadequate social security system for its rapidly aging population, after earlier commercial bank offerings proved nonviable.
Country Spotlight: Norway
For this quarter and to mark the ECBC’s 38th Plenary Meeting in Stavanger, Benedikte Fahre from Finance Norway, looks at some of the specifics of the Norwegian housing and mortgage market from housing co-operatives to the growth of covered bond funding. Norway offers a distinctive model of housing finance: a market shaped by high home ownership, strong local banking traditions and a funding system, like its Scandinavian peers, that relies heavily on covered bonds.
This article covers the highly characteristic, but resilient mortgage market, the macroeconomic backdrop and the innovative ways in which both large and small mortgage lenders remain competitive in both the domestic and international covered bond markets.
EMF Country Fact Sheets Updates
As always, we include up-to-date national factsheets offering a snapshot of mortgage market developments in Q4 2025. The country fact sheets highlight analytical commentary together with data tables on the following key indicators:
- Total outstanding residential mortgage lending;
- Regulation and Government intervention;
- Nominal house price indices; and
- Mortgage interest rates.
Key highlights from the Q4 2025 Quarterly Review :
By Q4, mortgage market recovery had become more entrenched, with outstanding balances and gross lending continuing to grow across the continent. The ECB’s bank lending survey highlighted growing demand partly due to lower rates. But there was also growing divergence between countries: some markets continued to see mortgage rates fall whilst others started to see small increases again. Overall, the quarter confirmed that the market was still recovering, but unevenly, shaped by differing rate dynamics and structural constraints.
Contact:
Eva Dervaux
Research and Data Adviser