The time of the taxi on mortgages ai historical lows it is about to end and the forecasts for the next few months are far from encouraging.
As reported in a previous article de IlGiornale.ItIn fact, since last September there has been a slow but steady rise in the reference rates and with the recovery of bond yields, mortgages have also slowly begun to rise. Accomplice could be the recovery recorded on overseas markets, where the yield of the US ten-year TNote jumped over 1.6%.
In the “old continent”, the signs are still slight, thus causing increases that do not particularly affect household portfolios; in the coming months, however, – perhaps thanks to a return to inflation – rates will probably continue to rise, definitively closing the era of “historic lows” that characterized 2020.
At present, as highlighted by theAbi (Italian Banking Association), the average total rate on loans has in any case fallen from 2.26% in January to 2.24 in February, and with almost 4 percentage points less than in the pre-crisis period (year 2007) in which the rate stopped at 6 , 18%. If the plus sign on interest has not yet “generalized”, the effects have had a special effect – at least for the moment – on the fixed rate with longer maturities, that is, those between 20 and 30 years; these types of mortgages, however, are the most widespread, affecting about half of the transactions entered into with banks and, therefore, represent a signal that should not be underestimated.
With regard to variable rates, however, everything remains stable with the Euribor index at 1 or 3 – traditional benchmark for variable mortgages – months which does not move from the values recorded in the last few quarters, remaining with a negative value of half a percentage point.
So, while the three-month Euribor is not “moving”, the Eurirs continues to show signs of recovery – which means the plus sign on interest – with a rise – from the beginning of the year – of 41 basis points on the index to 20 years, and 48 basis points on the maturity of mortgages at 30 years, a time period beyond which, as a rule, banks do not disburse the loan.
According to experts, the increase in interest on the fixed rate (which represents about 90% of the mortgages disbursed in recent years) could redeem the competition with a variable rate which, remaining under -0.5% since last October, could become very palatable with one spread between the two classes which exceeded 30 basis points.
“What does this sign mean”
For the president ofAcer (Association of building builders of Rome and Province) Nicolò Rebecchini: “A rise in interest rates is not a negative sign as it shows that the markets believe in the recovery of our country’s economy”; “Certainly the downside – continues the representative of the Constructors’ association – is that those who have contracted or must contract debt may have less favorable consequences”.
In fact, while rates rise – at least those on the fixed rate – rise, at the same time the trend of requesting new mortgages and subrogations – and it is evident that the two data are linked to each other; in the first quarter of 2021, in fact, there was a reversal of the trend for the requests for mortgages and subrogations by Italian families.
From the analysis of the requests registered on the Credit Information System of Crif there was an overall increase of + 9.6% compared to the corresponding period of 2020. The Crif notes that after a start to the year with the handbrake on, in the wake of the negative trend of the last quarter of 2020, the positive in the quarter is entirely attributable to the growth recorded in March (+ 55.8%), however conditioned by the comparison with the corresponding month of 2020, which had seen the substantial paralysis of operations due to the total lockdown launched by the Government to contain the first wave of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Mortgage applications
At the level of the first quarter of the year, in absolute terms the total number of requests detected is the highest in the last 9 years. Furthermore, another encouraging sign concerns the increase in the average amount requested, which recorded + 2.6% compared to the corresponding period of 2020, reaching 136,656 euros. Also in this case it is the highest value since 2013 to date. As regards the distribution by amount range, in the first quarter of 2021 requests for amounts between 100,000 and 150,000 euros represent the preferred solution by Italians, with approximately 30% of the total, a figure substantially in line with the corresponding period of 2020. In second place (with 25%) remains the class of amounts between 150,000 and 300,000 euros.
“An increase in rates could also affect families who have already bought a house or are about to do so – continues Rebecchini -; it would therefore be very important, even more so in a delicate moment like the present one, to support families in the purchase of their own home, whether it is renovated or newly built, but in any case anti-seismic and low energy consumption, strengthening and refinancing the guarantee fund of the State already existing”.
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