Every year it is the same.
Judith García and her husband, far from celebrating the increase in the minimum wage in Mexico, suffer from it, they know that their mortgage debt will inevitably increase.
In 2009 her husband obtained a mortgage loan through the Institute of the National Housing Fund for Workers (Infonavit) to buy a house in her native Durango.
They still did not meet the requirements to acquire exclusive financing from Infonavit, so the construction company told him about the Infonavit Total Credit —a co-participated financing where most of it is provided by the bank— as the best option.
At that time, García assures, this financing was only granted in minimum wages and that is how they hired him.
What began as a joy to stop paying rents and have their own assets, originally valued at about 375.
Until 2016, Infonavit loans were granted in minimum wages and that means that for people who have this type of financing, each time it increases, so does the total debt.
Thanks to a reform of that same year, the agency established that in order not to harm the worker so much, the minimum rate will be chosen between the increase in the minimum wage or between inflation.
However, in 2022 the worst price escalation of the last 20 years has been registered, exceeding 8%.
Thus, although it is a smaller increase compared to the 20% increase that the minimum wage will have the following year, an increase of around 8% will weigh on the pockets of 2.3 million families that still have a mortgage loan under these conditions.
It is therefore,
García found out about the conversion option offered by Infonavit since the middle of the year, but she is one of the 264,000 people with this type of credit who excludes the program due to the type of financing she contracted.
This is because your Infonavit Total loan is co-participated financing, that is, although Infonavit processes the loan, it only contributes a small part of it, since practically the funding is done by the bank and therefore, they set their rules.
Credits with a judicial process due to non-payment will not be able to benefit from this conversion program either.
And in the case of co-financed financing between a banking institution and Infonavit, the interested parties may only adjust to pesos the part that the Institute has contributed, but not the part that the financial institution gave.
Aerial view of the Valle de San Miguel subdivision in the State of Puebla. Alejandra Rajal
“To me, the truth, when they tell me the minimum wage went up, I say: 'chin, the house debt is going to go up again and when am I going to finish paying it?', he laments.
Although in the last 13 years, she and her husband have punctually paid their monthly payments, which now amount to about 5,500 pesos, they still have to pay 120,000 pesos and as of the first day of January of the following year their debt will increase by about 9,000 pesos.
In the last decade, García and her family have faced economic crises, work disability and a pandemic.
Everything, with the latent fear that if they lose their source of income they will not be able to cover the monthly payments of their mortgage credit.
Her husband works in sales and she runs a store.
Just by adding up the income from their marathon days, they make the monthly payments for the house and the maintenance of their three daughters.
“Infonavit doesn't care if you have a job or not, they don't care if you don't eat, if you don't dress, they want you to pay and that's it.
I would not take out a loan again, it is to enslave yourself with Infonavit ”, she refers.
Carlos Martínez, general director of Infonavit explains that there are 2.3 million loans that are still in minimum wages.
“What we tell people is that it is now when the change is most convenient because it is a period of high inflation, that is why we are urging people to make the change,” he mentions.
The procedure is online and free on the agency's website.
The director refers that it is established that in the new credit with a fixed interest rate and according to the salary of the worker, which goes from 2% to 10.4%.
In most cases, a discount is also made and the number of payments that the debtor had before does not change.
“To date, 438,000 credits have already been converted and discounts totaling 64,000 million pesos have been made.
This conversion program started from this Administration ”, he details.
🚨URGENT🚨 If you have a credit in Infonavit BEFORE 2016, in January the debt will be updated with inflation.
Yes in Dec.
you owe 100 thousand and inflation is 8% your debt will be 108 thousand in January.
AVOID IT by changing your credit to PESOS before December 31.
and freeze your balance.
— Carlos Martínez V. 🏳️🌈 (@carlosmartinezv) December 12, 2022
The director acknowledges that in these first days of December these procedures have increased compared to other months.
"When we started this year, an average of 20,000 were converted and in these five days of December some 32,000 credits have been converted," he says.
Martínez explains that each debtor must complete the digital process, since it is impossible for the agency to execute it automatically.
Since 2017, all Infonavit financing is granted in pesos.
With unprecedented inflation in recent decades and an interest rate set by the Bank of Mexico at 10.5%, Martínez acknowledges that the supply of housing in the country has indeed slowed down and therefore the placement of credit this year will be below 2021. "Loans for companies have had an impact due to interest rates, material prices have had double-digit inflation and that means that the projects they had are no longer viable and projects are postponed," he adds .
Infonavit expects to close 2022 with a dispersion of 200,000 million pesos in financing, 9% below last year.
About a thousand kilometers away from the central offices of Infonavit, in the city of Gómez Palacio, Durango, Judith García and her husband watch the calendar go by with resignation before the imminent increase in their debt.
"My husband doesn't even want to do the math anymore because he gets sad," García confesses.
However, they do not intend to throw in the towel after so many years either: "We continue to want it and here we continue to pay for it," concludes this wife and mother of a family between her teeth.
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