The production of housing loans last year is expected to fall by 3% compared to 2021 but remains high compared to the average of the last ten years, the Banque de France announced on Thursday. In question, the rise in the cost of credit, the average rate returning to the bar of 2% in December for the first time since 2016.
Excluding loan renegotiations, the production of new loans for the year 2022 would amount to 218.4 billion euros, according to the latest data from the central bank issued at the end of November but which include a projection for the last month of the year. This is a historic high apart from the exceptional production of the year 2021, a year of catch-up after a year 2020 turned upside down by the Covid-19, indicates the monthly monitoring document on the subject.
Credit supply remained abundant and cheaper than with our main European partners, said Marie-Laure Barut-Etherington, Deputy Director General of the Statistics, Studies and International Department at the Banque de France during a press conference.
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Above 2% for the first time since 2016
However, it notes a landing phase in the second half of the year, which is less likely to generate new files. A statement shared by the Century 21 agency group, which reported on Tuesday a real slowdown during the summer. Overall, real estate activity over the year fell by 4.1%, according to the agency network.
The central bank is also counting on an average credit rate (excluding insurance and ancillary costs) 2.04% in Decemberabove 2% for the first time since April 2016. The average rate delivered by the Banque de France relates to loans granted by banks, following the processing of borrowers’ files.
The average rate was almost twice lower a year earlier, hardly above 1%. That riselinked to that of the key rates of the European Central Bank (ECB), is therefore very fast.
The bill increases for the borrower
For example, when the rate of a loan of 150,000 euros over 20 years goes from 1% to 2%, the amount to be repaid ultimately goes from around 165,500 euros to more than 182,000 euros, or some additional 16,500 euros.
Real estate credit: rates continue to climb in 2023
Attrition rate: the Banque de France maps any blockage in the real estate market
Marie-Laure Barut-Etherington has once again ruled out any blockage in the real estate market due to the attrition rate, a ceiling rate intended to protect borrowers from abusive credit conditions. This legal maximum, set on January 1 at 3.57% all costs included for a loan of 20 years or more, is under fire from critics, in particular from brokers who see it as a barrier to access to real estate credit.
The number of compromises canceled on the grounds of refusal of loan is however much lower than what some market operators have been able to declare, whose alarmist communication has undoubtedly contributed to slowing down real estate projects even more than the tightening of borrowing conditions, Century 21 president Charles Marinakis observed Tuesday.
Real estate credit: the wear rate raised to 3.57%, good short-term news?
Several professional associations have also called on Wednesday for the release of access to credit in an open letter addressed to the Minister Delegate for Housing Olivier Klein. More prosaically, a higher rate also allows them to better defend their commissions, an adjustment variable for banks when the room for maneuver between the nominal rate and the usury rate tightens. The current problem of the rate of wear is also due to the timetable for the revisions of these maximum thresholds: once a quarter, which implies a shift in the event of a rapid rise in property rates.
The home loan rate barometer
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