The credit tap opens a little more for those who wish to become homeowners.
Meeting this Thursday, December 17, the High Council for Financial Stability (HCSF), the authority responsible for monitoring and preserving the stability of the French financial system, relaxed the conditions for granting real estate loans that it had sharply tightened in 2019 . "It is essential that the French can access easily and under the best conditions to credit when they are first-time buyers ... This is the key point of our policy", justified the Minister of the Economy, Finance and la Relance, Bruno Le Maire, also president of the HCSF.
Driven by a massive influx of liquidity with the crisis linked to Covid-19, the production of loans reached records (23.4 billion euros in October).
And nothing seems to be stopping it, not even the continuous rise in house prices.
Help first-time buyers and support the market
This is the whole point of the three adjustments decided on Thursday and which should come into force at the beginning of January.
The first concerns the debt ratio (also called the effort rate, that is to say the share of monthly payments in relation to household income), which climbs from 33% to 35%.
This gain of two points is particularly welcomed by the professionals who have been battling for several months.
"We have sometimes had credit refusals for a debt of 33.1%, which does not make sense", explains Julie Bachet, general manager of the broker Vousfinancer.
"A couple with 3000 euros of income will be able to borrow 15,000 euros more at 1.5% over 25 years (262,542 against 247,539 euros) with an increased monthly payment of only 60 euros per month, by indebting themselves at 35% at instead of 33% ”, she calculates.
Greater latitude for banks
The second adjustment comes to extend by two years the maximum period of debt, which goes from 25 years to 27 years but "exclusively in the case of a purchase in the new or of a good requiring the realization of major works", underlines Do we have a source close to the HCSF.
This two-year extension aims to take into account the grace period - often two years - linked to construction deadlines (purchase on plans).
Finally, last modification: the latitude left to the banks to accept certain cases outside the nails is increased from 15% to 20% in order to help, again, first-time buyers.
In return for its gesture, the HCSF specifies that its recommendations will become binding from the summer of 2021, which means that a bank violating these new measures may be penalized.
"The lobbies have struck again"
These credit boosts were immediately welcomed by credit brokers and by banks, represented by the French Banking Federation (FBF).
"This is very good news which makes it possible to take into account housing needs and to adapt in a practical way the rules for granting credit to the expectations of households in collective risk management", commented Maya Atig, its director. general.
The Governor of the Banque de France, François Villeroy de Galhau, was less enthusiastic.
"We have decided on a limited, reasonable adjustment of certain criteria, but on the condition that we clearly and firmly stay the course: that of stopping a continuous drift in the granting conditions which would expose households to the risk of over-indebtedness".
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However, this is precisely what consumer protection associations fear.
At the head of which the CLCV.
"These largesse are made to make the concrete machine work, but not to help consumers", launches its president Jean-Yves Mano.
"The lobbies have struck again, he protests, this will benefit developers and owners, who will benefit from the soaring real estate prices, but not to borrowers who can very quickly find themselves in debt in the event of unemployment with this crisis ”.