French banks offer fewer and fewer mortgages

When she contacted her advisor at Caisse d’Epargne Ile-de-France in the heart of August to open a joint account, Cécile was immediately warned. “She said to me, ‘I hope you don’t want to buy one, we don’t offer any more until October, because of the wear rate.’ » Contacted, the establishment indicates that it is indeed brought “to refuse files on a case-by-case basis because of the rate of wear and tear”but that“no general instructions were given”. And this reluctance is shared by most banking brands.

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So much so that, in their last note on the economy, published in July, the notaries of France mentioned “usury rates which hinder access to credit and pose a risk of blockage of the real estate market”.

Spare the margins

The purpose of the latter is to protect the borrower against too high credit rates. They correspond to the maximum legal rate that banks are authorized to offer their customers: the cost of the loan, including borrower’s insurance and administration fees, must remain below this ceiling. It is the Banque de France which, each quarter, sets it, based on the average rates applied by the banks and increased by a third.

“Banks are overwhelmed with files and they only select the best profiles” Sandrine Allonier, director of studies at the broker Vousfinancer

Borrowing rates having been historically low in recent years, the wear rate is therefore also low (2.57% for loans over twenty years, and 2.60% for those with a from ten to twenty years, since the 1^er July), even though mortgage rates are rising, in the wake of OAT rates (State debt securities), to ten years. For notaries, who “see an increase in the number of loan refusals”this very slow increase in wear rates “de facto excludes certain households”.

In this context, banks have been reluctant, for several months, to work with brokers, in order to save their margins. “They believe that it is not profitable to lend under current conditions and are waiting for the next increase in the usury rate, on 1^er october, explains Sandrine Allonier, the director of studies of the mortgage broker Vousfinancer. Only a quarter of the banks we work with still agree to lend, so they are overwhelmed with files and only select the best profiles. » At this broker, the refusal rate rose to 30%-40% of files presented, compared to 10% last year.

Veronique Chocron