Finnish households drew down about 126 million euros in new holiday housing home loans in June, 16 percent less than the same month last year, according to the Bank of Finland.

The central bank noted that there was a spike in loans for cottages in 2020 and 2021, a trend which was sometimes linked to changes brought about by the Covid crisis.

Enthusiasm for holiday home purchases began to dwindle in the spring. For the first time in two years new leisure home loans returned to levels that were seen before the epidemic, according to the bank's figures.

However, the bank reported that compared to the pre-Covid period, new holiday home loans were still 35 percent higher in June of this year than the same month in 2019.

Average interest rates on holiday home loans rose to 1.71 percent in June. The last time it was at this level was in March 2015. The bank attributed much of the interest rate increase to an uptick in the Euribor rate.

The amount of new housing loans also saw a decline, the bank said. Finnish households took 1.9 billion euros in new housing loans in June, which was 255 million euros less than the same month last year.