Preferential mortgage and its availability in the future.

Budget expenditures on subsidizing government mortgage programs - preferential mortgages for everyone, family mortgages, IT mortgages, etc. – depend on the level of the Bank of Russia key rate. For example, the fixed maximum rate for the population on preferential mortgages is 8% per annum. This is below the market rate, so the state compensates banks for lost income. Until recently, the amount of compensation was calculated using the formula: key rate increased by 2.5 percentage points, minus 8%. Thus, with a key rate of 7.5%, the maximum amount of compensation to the bank was 2 percentage points, and with a key rate of 13% - already 7.5%.

Therefore, from the point of view of preferential mortgage programs, banks benefit from a high key rate, and they even asked the government to increase the subsidy to banks when the Central Bank lowered the key rate to 4.5% in the summer of 2020 (then the rate on preferential mortgages was 6.5%, and the increasing coefficient is 3 percentage points). But for the budget, the opposite is true: an increase in the key rate by 5.5 percentage points, as happened in the last two months, means an explosive increase in spending on subsidizing preferential mortgage programs.

Therefore, the government decided to reduce subsidies to banks by 0.5 percentage points. from September 20, which immediately led to an increase in actual rates on concessional loans. No, the authorities did not formally increase rates, but until September 20, banks issued preferential rates, family rates, etc. to borrowers. mortgages at rates below the maximum, with a discount, and after the 20th they canceled these discounts and increased rates to a fixed maximum. For example, at the beginning of September at Sberbank the minimum rate for the “State Support” program was 5.5% per annum, for family mortgages - 3.5%, for IT mortgages - 2.5%. And after September 20, rates increased to 8%, 6% and 5%, respectively, that is, by 2.5 percentage points.

At the same time, the government increased the minimum down payment under preferential programs from 15% to 20%, since preferential borrowers who took out loans with a low down payment at reduced rates to purchase housing at greatly inflated prices worsened the quality of banks’ mortgage portfolios, which greatly worried the Central Bank. Thus, theoretically, the increase in the Central Bank’s key rate to 13% did not affect preferential government programs. But in practice, lending conditions for preferential borrowers have worsened. An increase in the rate from 5.5 to 8% with a loan term of 20 years and a down payment of 20% means an increase in the mortgage payment for an apartment worth 10 million rubles. from 58.5 thousand to 67 thousand rubles. per month - this is not critical, but noticeable.

Worse is the increase in the down payment from 15% to 20% - the extra 500 thousand that will have to be paid to the bank is not lying around on anyone’s road. In the future, developers will most likely be forced to compensate for the increase in the down payment with discounts, but now, against the backdrop of the excitement provoked by an increase in the key rate and a revision of the terms of preferential lending, discounts are more likely to decrease than increase.

At the same time, the government will most likely be forced to further tighten the screws, because even with the reduction in bank compensation, the budgetary costs of subsidizing preferential rates are increasing astronomically.

As follows from the explanatory note to the draft federal budget for 2024 and the planning period 2025-2026, which Interfax has reviewed, the costs of the preferential mortgage program in 2024-2025. will increase by 251.6 billion rubles compared to the volumes allocated for the same period in the current budget, and for the family mortgage program - by 216.6 billion rubles. But there are also Far Eastern mortgages, IT mortgages, etc.

The State Duma has also undertaken to help the government save public funds. As Izvestia reported, members of the State Duma Committee on Construction and Housing and Communal Services propose to introduce a ban on obtaining preferential mortgages without registration in the region where the purchase of housing is planned.

According to the authors of the bill, this will help reduce the number of investors using government subsidies to purchase assets. Apparently, other initiatives aimed at limiting demand within the framework of preferential mortgage programs will follow in the future.