Photo: Sergey Mikhaylichenko/
There are two weeks left before the completion of the mass preferential mortgage. Developers actively attract buyers with advertisements in the style of “hurry up before it’s too late”, and some banks, on the contrary, limit the issuance of such loans. In particular, VTB last week raised the initial payment under the state program to a prohibitive 60%. According to some of the developers surveyed by Fontanka, this is a reaction to increased demand, and other banks may follow the example of one of the largest players.
Has June become a hype?
As follows from the preliminary data of the largest developers of St. Petersburg, the current demand of customers for the purchase of apartments using the preferential mortgage program in June is close to the level of May. At the end of the month, it can either remain at the level of the previous month, or exceed its results.
“We assume that the increase in demand in June may be at the level of May (in May, sales growth +20% by April). Sales in the first week of June were either at the level of May or exceeded May figures, depending on the developer and the project,” says Olga Trosheva, director of the St. Petersburg Real Estate Consulting Center (Setl Group).
Sales of builders continue to grow, but against the background of the completion of the mass preferential mortgage program, this is already happening at a more restrained pace.
“In our company, the number of transactions in May was 30% higher compared to April. Preliminary data for June indicate that the increase in relation to May will be in the range of 10-15%. This is also a good indicator: in relation to April, demand growth will be 40-45%,” said Sergey Terentyev, director of the real estate department of the CDU group.
According to him, the activity of buyers is increased, but the current level of demand cannot be called hype. The same opinion was expressed by Kirill Kudryavtsev, head of the Mortgage lending Department of the Pskov Group of Companies.
“The mass preferential mortgage has been losing ground since last year, as the conditions for it deteriorate in the form of an increased rate and a reduced loan limit. We have not seen a sharp increase in demand for this program in its last month of operation. He’s elevated, yes. But not hype,” he notes.
Olga Kuznetsova, Deputy General Director of the Glavstroy real estate agency, agrees with him: “Today we can talk about increased demand, not hype, which is largely due to changes in the terms of preferential mortgage programs at the beginning of the year, including limiting the loan amount, increasing the down payment, the rule of one mortgage in one hand. We assume that the results of June will be higher than in May.”
Banks restrict the issuance of mortgages
Nevertheless, some Fontanka experts still note signs of excessive demand caused by the imminent completion of the state program, which accounted for the bulk of transactions on the market. So, according to the real estate agency “Floors”, in Russia the demand for preferential mortgage programs increased by 44% in May, and over the past days of June it added another 24%. In St. Petersburg, the growth was 7% and 19%, respectively.
“So far, we have only seen an increase in the number of applications for preferential mortgage programs, both for the purchase of apartments in new buildings and the purchase of individual houses and their construction. In St. Petersburg, the dynamics of recent months have been more restrained, since the high demand for preferential mortgage programs here was higher than in Russia as a whole, starting from January-February of this year,” comments Yuri Izosimov, director of the federal company “Floors” in St. Petersburg.
Yes, we state that the level of demand in the market at the moment quite falls under the definition of “hype”, — confirmed Jan Feldman, Marketing Director of Lenstroytrest Group. “Last May and the first days of June, we sold 2.5 times more apartments than in the same period last year.”
According to Izosimov, the situation in the mortgage market may change dramatically if banks begin to impose restrictions on the approval of new applications. “Against the background of the high demand in recent months, some banks have already announced that they will limit the acceptance of new applications from the second half of June in order to ensure the issuance of already approved loans. There are banks that have introduced restrictive conditions on mortgages for ready—made housing in order to free up resources for issuing preferential loans,” the expert noted.
Lenstroytrest also notes that many banks have already reached the planned issuance targets and therefore began to tighten the conditions for issuance. According to the company’s representative, VTB’s recent decision to increase the down payment on a preferential mortgage to 60% may be related to this. At the same time, the minimum possible threshold approved by the government is 30%.
At the same time, VTB raised up to 30% initial contributions for other programs — the Far Eastern, Arctic and IT mortgages, although after July 1 their effect will continue. “It cannot be ruled out that some other banks will follow his example in the near future,” Feldman believes.
Although so far none of the credit institutions has announced such measures. Some, on the contrary, told reporters that they did not plan to do so. These include Dom. RF Bank, Absolut Bank, Sovcombank, Promsvyazbank, Novikombank and MTS Bank. Fontanka also sent relevant requests to the BEAC, Gazprombank, Bank Saint Petersburg, Alfa-Bank and Rosbank, but did not receive responses.
Why aggravate the “farewell to state support”
VTB’s decision is related to internal factors, the desire to redistribute demand between its programs, Olga Kuznetsova believes. The bank is one of the largest players in the mortgage market, but not the only one. Demand is redistributed between other financial institutions that offer more comfortable conditions. “To date, we have not received information from other banks about the imminent decision to increase the initial payment,” said a representative of Glavstroy.
According to Kirill Kudryavtsev, VTB wants to create some kind of barrier and save its own limits on state support. “This bank has significantly increased its share in the mortgage market after the Savings Bank introduced an additional payment for issuing mortgages under state programs. Consequently, the limits began to “melt”,” he argues.
At the same time, the representative of the UCS draws attention to the fact that the restrictions did not affect developers who use VTB project financing. That is, the requirement for a down payment of 60% does not apply to mortgage loans for the purchase of apartments in those residential buildings whose construction is credited to VTB.
However, given that VTB Bank was not the dominant player in the project finance market, a significant number of residential complexes from almost all developers will fall under this requirement,” predicts Sergey Terentyev.
He also recalls that at the beginning of the year, a number of banks introduced fees for issuing preferential mortgage loans, but as a result lost a significant part of their mortgage portfolio. In this regard, some banks, and in particular VTB, subsequently canceled this condition and were able to increase market share. But, for example, the BEAC lost its leadership then, as a result of which it also had to cancel commissions.
“Initially, VTB announced the lifting of restrictions for up to one and a half months. In fact, two months have passed, and we can thank the bank for softening the conditions for a longer period than initially stated. The path with an increase in the initial payment is more logical than the introduction of fees for issuing a loan. However, it is a pity that the deterioration of conditions occurred two weeks before the end of the preferential mortgage program “State Support 2020″ and the transformation of family mortgages. We can say that for a large number of potential borrowers who have not yet applied, the protective conditions are returning again as at the beginning of the year,” says the representative of the CDU.
The cancellation of VTB commissions “saved the market,” says Maxim Turta, head of the sales department of the Aquilon Group in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region. “Now, by introducing a high down payment, the bank will receive a sharp outflow, since there are only a few customers with such a large PV among our customers. If other banks join this trend, it will worsen the “farewell to state support” by sharply narrowing the focus group, which will reduce the volume of transactions in the market,” he predicts.
Terentyev notes that some large banks, for example, the same Dom. RF, did not introduce additional conditions at the beginning of the year and are not announcing them now. But individual players will not be able to take on all the additional demand due to technical restrictions on cross-country traffic if several large banks worsen the conditions for providing mortgage loans at once.
“We can expect that small banks will try to take advantage of this situation and increase their mortgage portfolio as much as possible. But they don’t have much time left. Two weeks from the moment of submitting an application to entering into a deal is a very short time. Thus, for people who will start coming to developers from mid—June, the situation becomes completely incomprehensible,” he sums up.
What exactly will remain after a preferential mortgage
It is assumed that after July 1, the second most popular family mortgage after the preferential one will remain, however, in a modified format, the parameters of which are still unknown. The program should become more targeted. According to Yuri Izosimov, it can undergo both negative and positive changes for the market.
“On the one hand, the possibility of using a family mortgage for families with children born since 2024 is being discussed, and this is a big plus, on the other hand, there are risks of increasing the family mortgage rate from 6% to 12% for certain categories of borrowers and reorienting it to small towns,” he says.
Possible requirements for the minimum square footage of apartments purchased on a family mortgage are discussed, as well as the fact that in small towns a loan at 6% can be obtained for families with two children, regardless of their age. But there are no specifics yet.
“We know that the standard preferential mortgage will expire and that the family mortgage will remain unchanged for people with children under the age of six. That is, the old “family” will remain for about 30% of borrowers from the total volume of potential clients under this program. The fact that the program will remain the same for small towns will have nothing to do with most developers,” Sergey Terentyev notes.
The IT mortgage will also remain, but it is even more targeted than the family one. The program is valid until the end of the year, allows you to take out a loan at a rate of up to 5%, but in order to qualify for it, borrowers must meet certain conditions, the most difficult of which are work in a government—accredited IT company and compliance with the average monthly salary to the minimum level. The larger the city, the higher this threshold. In Moscow, for example, over the past three months, you need to receive from 150 thousand rubles, but this is before deducting personal income tax.
“The IT mortgage accounts for about 10% of all borrowers, it will not be able to save the situation,” Terentyev believes. — The question is how people will reason: Is 17% on a mortgage with the possibility to refinance the loan in the future acceptable? With a small loan, maybe people will be willing to go for it. And those who only have a down payment? During the summer, we will see how buyers will answer this question for themselves.”
Nevertheless, the demand for IT mortgages is growing rapidly. This is indirectly confirmed by the fact that banks are again suspending the acceptance of applications for its registration due to the exhaustion of limits. VTB announced this last week. In total, the government allocated 500 billion rubles for the state program, and in April allocated an additional 200 billion for it. This money is distributed among all participating banks, but it is significant that one of the largest players had enough limit increases for a couple of months.
All bets on family
In the total volume of mortgage lending in Russia, according to “Floors”, in May the share of mortgages with state support increased to 21.2% after 12.9% a year earlier, family mortgages increased from 12.3% to 22.3% over the same period, IT mortgages — from 0.3% to 2.4%, Far Eastern mortgages — from 1.5% up to 3.1%, rural — from 0.9% to 6%. The share of other lending programs decreased from 72.1% to 45%, the company said. According to St. Petersburg Real Estate, the share of the state program, which will cease to work on July 1, in mortgage transactions in recent months has been 40-50%.
Fontanka asked experts how demand will be redistributed after the end of the preferential mortgage. There are few hopes for an IT mortgage – there are more requirements for it, and its share is not as large as that of a family one, and there are no plans to extend it yet.
“A lot will depend on the actual conditions of the family mortgage,” said Kirill Kudryavtsev, a representative of the Pskov Group of Companies. — According to our practice, last May, the shares between mass preferential mortgages, family and IT were distributed almost equally: 35, 30 and 35%, respectively.”
“A year ago, transactions using family mortgages accounted for 19% of the total number of mortgage transactions in our projects, and transactions with IT mortgages accounted for 14%. This year, the family mortgage accounted for 54%, and the IT mortgage for 28%. Thus, we see that over the specified period, the demand for family mortgages has increased by more than 2 times, and the demand for IT mortgages has increased by 2 times. Earlier, a representative of the Ministry of Finance announced the completion of the IT mortgage by the end of this year. Thus, there is a high probability that only the family mortgage program will be extended,” says Tatyana Khalilova, director of the GloraX sales department.
“If we talk about family mortgages, its share after maintaining preferential lending conditions in 2024 in Glavstroy St. Petersburg projects ranged from 50-55%, which is largely due to family housing. The share of IT mortgages did not exceed 10-15%. Further redistribution of shares will depend on the new conditions for the programs,” emphasizes Olga Kuznetsova, a representative of the company.
In the CDU, demand redistribution is not expected, said Sergey Terentyev. “There will be no more IT specialists in the country at the moment,” he argues. — Everyone who could use this program immediately purchased apartments using it, since the conditions for an IT mortgage were always better than for a family one. Buyers who initially counted only on a family mortgage will not be able to switch to it. Thus, we are simply waiting for a reduction in demand by 30-40%. The question is, how much demand can be met by standard programs at market rates?”
The Bank of Russia believes that the cancellation of the massive program will allow mortgage lending to grow at a balanced pace — at the level of 7-12% after 30% or more. They are confident that this will not affect the profits of developers, since they have accumulated a sufficient margin of safety in previous years and months.
“As for the impact on the construction sector, this market will grow, there will be no market failure. In addition, significant profits have been accumulated, the airbag has been accumulated. <...> We do not expect that there will be a massive release of people. You know the situation on the labor market, everyone is chasing labor. Those horror stories that are being talked about, in my opinion, are horror stories,” Elvira Nabiullina, Chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, said earlier.
Photo: Sergey Mikhaylichenko/
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Источник: www.fontanka.ru
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