the government is taking steps to slightly ease access to credit

Bercy and the Banque de France marginally adjusted the rules for access to real estate credit on Monday, with provisions to allow more households to access it and revive a market in free fall.

The Ministry of the Economy and the Bank of France, which meet in the High Financial Stability Council, decided on Monday, December 4, to change some rules. The idea is to make it a little easier for buyers to access credit.

The first provision concerns a possible extension of loans beyond 25 years, which is the maximum limit today. In certain cases, banks will be able to exceed this limit and sign loans of up to 27 years, but under certain conditions. Renovation or transformation work in the house or apartment must represent at least 10% of the total amount of the operation.

The banks will also have a little more flexibility to access slightly tighter files, first-time buyers, for example, who are somewhat lacking in contributions or rental investors who would slightly exceed the debt limit. For these profiles, banks are already entitled to a small quota of exceptions of around 20% over a quarter. With these new rules, they will be able to go beyond but only if they fall below this threshold of 20% in the following quarters. So they will be able to exceed over a quarter but on condition of rebalancing afterwards.

Insufficient adjustments, according to professionals

Another provision, finally, if a loan file has been refused while the buyer is solvent, he can request a review to have a second chance. Finally, it’s technical, but it involves making the use of bridging loans a little more flexible.

But these are still marginal adjustments, it remains very constrained, very regulated and this is what brokers and professionals denounce. “It is not with these announcements that we are going to breathe new life into the market,” comments MeilleurTaux.com, credit specialist. Professionals are disappointed, because they were hoping for much stronger measures, for example, that the debt ceiling of 35% would be removed. The government remains very cautious, however, according to the Banque de France, since August, the production of real estate loans has fallen below 10 billion euros monthly, unheard of for more than seven years.