- Статьи
- Economy
- It's gotten to the point of outrage: the market supported the abolition of limits on family mortgages
It's gotten to the point of outrage: the market supported the abolition of limits on family mortgages
The abolition of limits on family mortgages will smooth out its issuance and exclude agiotic demand, the press service of the operator of state programs - the corporation Dom.RF - told Izvestia. President Vladimir Putin said on a direct line that the program for families with children "should not have any limits." The Ministry of Finance has already announced that it is preparing to change the conditions. Banks also supported the initiative of the head of state - they are confident that this will balance the demand for preferential mortgages. How much it will increase the burden on the budget and whether it will accelerate housing prices - in the material "Izvestia".
Russia will remove limits on preferential mortgages
Questions related to mortgages and housing have become one of the most popular on the direct line in 2024 - this assessment was given by the neural network "Sber" Giga Chat, said the hosts of the event. In response to one of the video messages - Sergey Parkhomenko from Krasnodar - Vladimir Putin called "outrageous" the cases when people are denied a favorable mortgage. In his opinion, neither family, nor rural, nor IT-mortgage "should not have any limits".
- The government and I have already discussed this topic. I was promised, and I will check this promise, to what extent it is fulfilled, that there will be no limits. Because at the end of the day, all of this is connected with subsidies from the government," the President emphasized.
He added that it should be a pleasure for the bank to receive 6% from those who use the loan, and to receive the difference between the bank rate and this 6% from the Ministry of Finance.
Preferential mortgage limits are the amount of money that banks can give to the population in the form of subsidized housing loans. Financial organizations are entitled to reimbursement of lost income for the difference between the market and reduced rate only if they issue such a loan within the limits - everything that is issued after their end, the state does not cover.
The president also specified that the Far East, Arctic and mortgages in new regions at 2% will definitely remain in place, and promised to "put in order" the registration of preferential programs.
Why banks do not formalize preferential mortgages
In the fall, banks began to suspend the issuance of family mortgages because the limits ran out. For example, this decision at the end of October first announced in "Sber", and then in VTB.
At the same time, in late November, the Ministry of Finance reported that this year's limits on family mortgage still remained - Br390 billion out of Br6.25 trillion. This means that the allocated funds were coming to an end in some banks. The thing is that earlier the operator of the program "Dom.RF" distributed them among credit institutions based on the declared demand.
To solve this problem, the Ministry of Finance approved a new mechanism for the distribution of limits on family mortgages on December 15. Now banks will be able to use the total amount - this will allow market participants to evenly "choose" the limit, the ministry explained. In addition, next year it was decided to increase the total amount of the limit to credit institutions from Br6.25 to Br8.65 trillion. However, now this change is largely unnecessary.
On the instructions of the President, made during the direct line, the Ministry of Finance will prepare changes to the rules of family mortgage to exclude the mechanism of limits, according to materials on the website of the department.
The Ministry added that in December the issue of premature exhaustion of limits in some banks has already been resolved. Now all financial organizations provide loans within the total amount of funds under the program - issuance is not suspended anywhere, assured the Ministry of Finance.
The Ministry of Construction is ready to consider further ways to develop the mechanism and programs of preferential mortgage, said the head of the department Irek Faizullin. On these issues, the Ministry has previously worked a lot together with the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance, he said.
Cancellation of the limit will increase the demand for family mortgages among citizens and exclude agiotage demand for it at certain moments of its implementation, noted in the press service of the operator of state programs "Dom.RF". Credit organizations also look positively at the initiative of the President. Thus, VTB and Absolut Bank noted that the abolition of limits will help to avoid demand spikes, which occurred when the limits ended.
- Now, when the main demand of borrowers is concentrated on preferential mortgages, it is important to ensure a more even operation of government programs, - said the press service of VTB.
How much budget funds will be allocated for the family mortgage
For the family mortgage is now set a limit of 6.3 trillion rubles, according to statistics on the site "Dom.RF". For the Far East and Arctic are provided 1.4 trillion, for the IT program - 750 billion.
The share of preferential programs in mortgage issuance from the beginning of 2024 averaged 68%, follows from the data of the United Credit Bureau (UCB). This means that almost two-thirds of the loans issued, the state repays together with the borrowers, because compensation to banks comes as the borrower pays off the loan. At the same time, the difference between preferential and market rates reaches 17-21%, which means that the Ministry of Finance is now bearing the main debt burden on housing loans in the Russian Federation.
According to the budget law for the next three-year period, 1.4 trillion rubles will be spent on preferential loans, including 637 billion rubles in 2025, 454.1 billion rubles in 2026, and 358.3 billion rubles in 2027.
Such expenditures can be compared with the federal budget spending on indexation of pensions and benefits, said leading analyst of Freedom Finance Global Natalia Milchakova. She reminded: next year the government will allocate 700 billion rubles to increase insurance payments to senior citizens, while the amount allocated for preferential mortgages is slightly less - 637 billion rubles.
For 2026 and 2027, the financial plan provided for a significant reduction in spending on the preferential program, the expert continued. But, according to her, most likely, after the President's statement, the budget expenditures for these purposes in 2026 and 2027 will remain at the level of 2025 in order to provide loans to as many people as possible.
However, according to Milchakova, this is not particularly critical for the budget, especially with the simultaneous reduction of other items of expenditure.
- Expenditures on family mortgages, when the limits on them are removed, may be comparable to spending on large infrastructure projects, such as improving roads or housing development, and reach up to a trillion rubles. These budget items require significant investments, and an increase in the funds allocated to mortgages may entail the need to redistribute money from other important sectors," believes Ekaterina Podolskaya, a lecturer at the Department of Economics and Finance of the Presidential Academy branch in St. Petersburg.
At the same time, the key interest rate is likely to remain high next year. Therefore, the costs for compensation of interest rates on preferential programs will be high, noted Vladimir Klimanov, Director of the Center for Regional Policy of IPEI. He specified: they are measured in hundreds of billions, which exceeds the amount of spending in 2025 on culture (233 billion), media (137 billion) and sports (67 billion).
How the mechanism proposed by the president can work
The abolition of limits should lead to an increase in lending under government programs, said Anton Pavlov, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Absolut Bank.
To prevent budget expenditures from growing uncontrollably, the authorities may reduce the number of potential borrowers, suggested economist Andrei Barkhota. The requirements for them may increase, and the maximum amount of preferential loans may be limited.
The Ministry of Finance has repeatedly stated that it intends to reduce the share of preferential mortgages in the issuance of housing loans to 25% (almost triple from the level of 2024), recalled Evgeny Shavnev, general director of the investment company in the real estate market LLC "Flip". At the same time, the Central Bank regularly notes that government programs reduce the impact of the key rate on the acceleration of prices and lead to higher housing prices.
However, the changes may not have a significant impact on prices, because in 2025 will work macroprudential limits on mortgages, reminded a leading analyst at Freedom Finance Global. They will limit the issuance of housing loans to borrowers with high debt loads, which in itself will reduce demand for them and keep the market from overheating.
The President's initiative will not lead to a mortgage boom, as in 2023, concluded Andrei Barkhota. Issuance under government programs will simply become more stable - without spikes and slumps in demand. At the same time, this is definitely positive news for real estate developers, which should support them in the near future.
