Real estate credit: some first-time buyers risk being completely excluded from access to loans

In accordance with what had been announced at the end of 2020^[1], the HCSF decided to translate, this summer, into legally binding standards, the recommendations conditioning French access to mortgage loans, i.e. 35% maximum debt and a maximum borrowing period of 25 years (27 in the new one).

Although the mortgage market is maintaining its dynamism, it should nevertheless be very quickly constrained by an inevitable rise in rates over all loan terms ... A situation which should naturally make it possible to regulate the volume of transactions generated on the market, without there being any need to include in law the restrictive criteria for access to mortgage loans.

"By endorsing the normative nature of the current recommendations for granting credit, the HCSF does not take into account the economic developments with which the mortgage market will inevitably be confronted and this, in the same way, that it had maintained its restrictions in a context decline in activity, in the midst of a health crisis! First-time buyers will once again be the first to be penalized ... Some may even be completely excluded from access to mortgage loans, especially those who will not be able to provide a contribution despite the quality of their file. ... Since June 15, we have already noticed a tightening of the conditions for granting credit and the requirements surrounding the request for a contribution, particularly with regard to first-time buyers!

We therefore remain very vigilant as to the terms that will be defined under this change of legal status and call on the High Council for Financial Stability to bring together all the professionals concerned in order to establish the foundations of a concerted solution adapted to the constraints. market conditions! ", declares Sylvain Lefèvre, President of La Centrale de Financement.

In order to contain the boom in the mortgage market, the HCSF had, at the start of 2020, asked banks to contain the debt ratio to a maximum of 33% for loans that cannot exceed a period of 25 years: a measure that had already penalized many French people, especially first-time buyers. At the end of 2020, under pressure from real estate professionals, the HCSF announced a slight relaxation of its restrictions: the debt ratio had been raised to 35% and the maximum duration of a loan extended. at 27 years in the case of new (in order to integrate the time dedicated to construction).

^[1]Press release from the High Council for Financial Stability of December 17, 2020