Citizens do not need affordable mortgages, but affordable housing, Nabiolina said. According to her, the benefits of preferential mortgages are "eaten up" by rising prices.
“At the end of the day, citizens don't need affordable mortgages, they need affordable housing. And affordable housing depends not only on the interest rate, but also on the price per square meter and, in fact, on the amount of debt that people have to take on," said the head of the Bank of Russia, Elvira Neviolina, at a plenary session of the State Duma.
The preferred programs, she said, gave recipients "extraordinarily affordable mortgage costs," but that benefit "has been largely, if not all, eaten up by rising prices." Those who were not eligible for preferential programs "simply faced a decline in housing prices."
According to the central bank, the volume of preferential interest loans is close to 19 trillion rubles - this is 14% of all ruble loans in the economy, with the largest part being mortgages.
The expansion of such programs is a "dead end", Neviolina believes, and the large volume of preferential loans is "one of the reasons for the high key interest rate".
The path to affordable market mortgages lies in low inflation, and preferred mortgages should, in my opinion, be strictly targeted.
- she added.
Podfishis.