More flexibility for buyers of rented property: this is the main measure that emerges from the opinion of the High Council for Financial Stability (HSCF) published this Tuesday, June 13.
The real estate market is currently suffering from the rise in credit rate, which have seen a sharp increase in a year and a half, from 1.12% in January 2022 to 2.87% expected in May 2023, according to the latest estimate from the Banque de France. In times of crisis, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire was calling of its wishes to correct any “barrier to access to credit”. For its part, in order not to promote household debt, the Banque de France was initially opposed to adjustments.
A week ago, she estimated that the volume of mortgages tended to stabilize. Over the last three months of the year, these had all the same dropped by 41%, to 37 billion euros between March and May, in comparison with the same period in 2022 when they reached 63 billion. Under these conditions, the opinion of the HSCF was particularly awaited by the actors of the housing sector.
Measures in favor of rental investment
The conditions that entered into force on January 1, 2022 remain unchanged. They prohibit banks from lending for a period of more than 25 years and set at 35% the ceiling for the effort ratio, that is to say the total amount of expenditure related to housing in relation to income.
The HSCF is however making a gesture towards buyers of properties intended for rental, specifies its communicated. The margin of derogation from these principles, which banks can exceed for 20% of loans, is also not modified. But within this margin of flexibility, the share of loans free to use for all types of real estate products, including rental investments, is raised from 20% to 30%.
“The objective is to be able to maintain the distribution in volume, in particular of credits which are not allocated to the main residence”, indicated Bercy to AFP, in favor “for example of rental investment”.
This new inflection follows the “technical adjustment” of the calculation of the wear rate decided in January and which now exceeds 4%. The monthly revision of this rate, which used to be updated quarterly, continues until the end of the year.
These measures are also part of the plan to deal with the housing crisis unveiled by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne at the beginning of June, and which plans in particular to promote home ownership and rental.