The Central Bank recorded a record delinquency of Russians on mortgages of 100 billion

The overdue mortgage debt of Russians at the beginning of February for the first time reached 100.6 billion rubles (cumulative total). In just a month, the figure increased by 5.7 billion, according to data from the Central Bank (Izvestia studied them). At the same time, the total volume of housing loans, on the contrary, decreased. Since the beginning of the year, it has fallen by 108 billion and amounted to 19 trillion at the beginning of February.

How to save money: a mortgage with an affordable down payment is a thing of the past

Now people need to collect a third of the cost of housing — for this they will have to save money for an average of three years.

Overdue debts and the number of restructurings are growing in the mortgage portfolio, the Central Bank's press service confirmed to Izvestia. They explained that this is due to the "maturation" of generations of loans issued in the second half of 2023 and the first half of 2024 under a massive preferential mortgage program. There was a lot of demand back then, including due to the announced stricter conditions for government programs. However, not all borrowers have calculated their strengths.

Citizens who took out mortgages in 2023-2024 were also counting on a future reduction in debt and the possibility of refinancing, said Nikita Kulagin, head of the Macroeconomic Analysis Department at Sovcombank. This winter, when the rate reached its peak, many of them began to go into arrears.

Vladimir Chernov, analyst at Freedom Finance Global, believes that another reason for the increase in mortgage arrears at the beginning of this year is the high inflation rates in the country and the stagnation of real incomes of the population.

According to him, the increase in delinquency indicates that a "bubble" of problem debts is brewing in banks. At the same time, in his opinion, the trend will continue in 2025.

Read more in the exclusive Izvestia article:

Debt to wait: Russians' mortgage arrears have exceeded a record 100 billion