Aspiring homeowners have postponed their plans this year.
The granting of new real estate loans reached its lowest level in eight years in 2023, at 129.5 billion euros, the Bank of France said on Friday.
We have to go back to 2015, a year when interest rates were lower, to obtain a lower amount of housing loans granted to individual residents, at 120 billion euros.
Over the last two years, rates have climbed, finally going from 1% to 4.5% for a 20-year loan.
As a result, borrowers put their projects on hold in the face of soaring credit costs or, quite simply, banks that were no longer profitable with zero or even negative profitability.
The stagnation of wages and real estate prices also contributed to these declines in credit.
Read alsoReal estate credit: why the vice is finally loosening
However, the situation tends to improve.
After reaching a peak in November, borrowing rates are clearly on a downward trend at the start of the year with banks having regained their appetite to lend.
“As an average rate, we are at 4.05% over 20 years and 4.20% over 25 years,” Maël Bernier, spokesperson for Meilleurtaux, explained to Le Parisien in January.
But excellent records can reach 3.80% and 3.85% over 20 and 25 years respectively.
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A credit of 23 years on average
This drop in rates has, however, not yet translated into an increase in the granting of credit.
The production of home loans continued to decline in December to reach 8.2 billion euros over the month, the lowest since December 2014.
The French are on average in debt for 23 years when they buy their main residence, with first-time buyers - who represent half of borrowers - being in debt for seven months more, according to the Banque de France.