With rising mortgage rates, first-time buyers are deserting agencies

2023-09-01 07:32:00

Charles Guyard, edited by Ugo Pascolo / Photo credits: Mathieu Thomasset / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP

While the wear rate is now 5.56% for loans over 20 years and over, finding housing for first-time buyers is increasingly like the twelve labors of Hercules. Results: the latter, disappointed by their borrowing capacity, desert real estate agencies.

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“When I got my job, I thought it was the perfect time to become an owner.” This is the reflection of Anne, 26, when she was promoted to manager of the shop where she works in La Rochelle. Only, with rates that never stop climbing, including a wear rate over 20 years and more up to 5.56%, the first-time buyer was quickly disillusioned. “I started looking at the ads and found what I was looking for for around 200,000 euros.”

“First-time buyers, we hardly see anymore”

A sum that the young woman thought was compatible with her salary of 2,000 net per month, until her appointment at the bank. “160,000 euros, for the moment that’s all I can borrow”, she says at the microphone of Europe 1. “It’s not encouraging, especially since I was not aiming for a large apartment, it’s a small one-bedroom apartment. I’m disappointed.”

The context experienced by the stone is such that profiles like Anne, looking for a first purchase, are becoming increasingly rare in agencies. “First-time buyers, we hardly see them anymore because prices and interest rates are high,” confirms Mickael Gauduchon, co-manager of the Orpi agency in La Rochelle. For this professional, it takes “an awareness that this golden period with rates below 1% was truly exceptional.”

“Now what is needed is for real estate prices to fall so that the purchasing power of our buyers and first-time buyers can become attractive once more.” But while waiting for this pious wish to come true, real estate reluctance takes precedence: in La Rochelle, the volume of real estate transactions has fallen by 20%.

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