Bad times for buyers in the real estate market. Interest rates have been climbing steadily for several months. Average loan rates reached 1.68% in July 2022, a record since the start of the year. “The strengthening of inflation and the persistence of tensions on the financial markets since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine have largely contributed to this development”, analyzes the Observatory Credit housing CSA, quoted by Capital. over 15 years, 20 years and 25 years are trading at average rates of 1.57%, 1.69% and 1.79% respectively.

Access to credit is more and more complicated, underlines Le Figaro Immobilier. An Opinion System survey published by Apic shows that nearly half of brokers estimate that 20 to 30% of loan files are refused by banks. The usury rate, the maximum rate at which banks can lend, is reached in many files. As a logical consequence, the number of real estate loans granted fell by more than 11% between the summer of 2021 and the summer of 2022.

However, the recent evolution of the rate at which the State is indebted over 10 years (the OAT) would offer hope to see the real estate market relax, indicates Le Figaro. Banks include this data in the calculation of their mortgage rate. However, after surging, the OAT is in free fall. It has almost halved in a month and a half (from 2.35% to 1.21%).

Banks could therefore follow this downward trend from the start of the school year. Sandrine Allonier, manager at Vousfinancer, remains quite pessimistic on this point. They “will rather use this drop in the OAT to rebuild their margins”, she believes.

The CSA Credit Housing Observatory, however, tempers this gloomy picture: “All borrowers benefit from loans at rates very much lower than inflation, which had never been seen since the end of the 1950s”.