When real estate credit becomes rare and expensive

“It’s sad to think that the best solution to unblock the project would be a legacy. » Benjamin Cubilié is bitter: this employee of the social sector and his partner want to adopt children, but this requires larger accommodation. With 3,200 euros in monthly income and a contribution of 30,000 euros, buying in their Toulouse neighborhood involves borrowing 180,000 euros. “The broker I contacted explained to me that I couldn’t get a loan because I’m on fixed-term contracts. With a CDI, we could obtain a loan but at 5% over twenty-five years, which would amount to paying more than twice the property over the duration of the loan. »

The observation is shared by many candidates for the purchase of real estate: whereas they could hope, less than two years ago, to borrow at a rate barely higher than 1%, today it is often necessary pay more than 4% annual interest, excluding insurance, over twenty years. This surge had the first effect of amputating the “real estate purchasing power”, the area that a buyer can buy for a given financial burden. “For the same monthly payment of 2,000 euros over twenty-five years, with a rate of 1.35%, one could borrow 530,000 euros in September 2022; today it is 380,000 euros”explains Stanislas Caluch, founder of the independent brokerage firm ToujoursPrêts.

This tightening obviously contributes to the fall in the total amount of home loans to individuals, which fell to 12 billion euros in July, according to figures published Monday, September 4 by the Banque de France. An envelope that has shrunk by 45% in one year, to fall to its lowest level since 2014.

“Selective” commercial policy

“The demand for credit is still there, sustained, but it is not always financeable”, reports Cécile Roquelaure, director of studies of the broker Empruntis. On the supply side, “we have changed the world: it has contracted sharply, especially since we were starting from an extremely high point, from a period during which banks were lending largely at historically low rates”.

This prosperous period ended when the European Central Bank (ECB) began to raise key interest rates, from which credit institutions refinance themselves. Because this strategy of the Frankfurt institution, motivated by the fight against inflation in the euro zone, has compressed the margins of banks, to the point that some simply had no interest in lending. Major players in the sector have therefore adopted a “selective” commercial policy, with some going so far as to close the tap on new loans almost entirely.

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