The production of real estate mortgages, excluding credit renegotiations, amounted to 9.6 billion euros, a slight increase compared to the month of August.
It is a market that is still slowly recovering. The total amount of new real estate loans granted in September remained below 10 billion euros, according to data published on Thursday by the Bank of France. Reference amount for the sector, the production of real estate mortgages, excluding mortgage renegotiations, amounts to 9.6 billion euros.
If this figure is slightly increasing compared to August it remains very far from the monthly average of the last ten years, close to 14 billion euros. At this rate, 2024 risks being the weakest since 2014.
Access to the market “remains difficult”, the authors of the monthly study of the Crédit Logement/CSA Observatory noted on Tuesday, “both for modest borrowers with little personal contribution, and for wealthier families without “a sufficient contribution given the prices are high and now increasing almost everywhere in the area”. Other professionals, brokers in the lead, think they see the light at the end of the tunnel and repeat over and over again that the signals are “green” again.
“A little more appetite”
The data shared by the main French banking operators on the occasion of the publication of the third quarter financial results in recent days show a significant improvement in the market.
“There is now a slightly greater propensity” on the part of customers “to take out new real estate loans,” said the deputy general director of Crédit Agricole SA (Home) Jérôme Grivet, on the sidelines of the publication of the group’s quarterly results.
The improvement of income thanks to salary increases as well as decline in rates According to him, the pool of loan candidates is gradually expanding. But the average rates on new loans now seem to stabilize: between August and September they fell only slightly, going from 3.59% to 3.56%. These rates exclude taxes and insurance.
The Banque de France also clarified on Thursday that the share of those taking on debt for the first time (“first time buyers”) to buy a primary home has risen above 50%.