Can the additional part of the stock mortgage interest rate be lowered?
Home loan interest rates in many places have dropped and then dropped, and stock mortgage owners are facing "high-level guards"
After buying a house in Kunshan in October 2021, Mr. Zhang, a house buyer from Jiangsu, applied for a first-home loan from a large state-owned bank. The loan amount is 1.2 million yuan, with a 30-year term and an interest rate of 6.4% (LPR plus 175 basis points).
Three months later, the first-home loan interest rate in Suzhou was lowered to below 5%.
With the reduction of LPR and the relaxation of housing loan policies, the current first-home loan interest rate of mainstream banks in Suzhou has dropped to a minimum of 4.1%.
This means that if Mr. Zhang buys a house one year later, the mortgage interest rate can be reduced by 2.3 percentage points, and the monthly payment of a loan of 1.2 million yuan can be reduced by more than 1,700 yuan.
Recently, Mr. Zhang left a message on the Internet platform, hoping that the bank can also lower the interest rate for regular mortgage customers like him.
Mr. Zhang's situation is not an exception.
"I hope that the relevant departments will soon introduce a policy to reduce the interest rate of stock mortgages and reduce our living pressure." Since last year, a large number of stock mortgage customers across the country have spoken on the Internet platform.
The Beijing Youth Daily reporter noticed that most of these home buyers bought houses during the period of high interest rates from 2019 to 2021, with an additional point of more than 100 basis points, and the annual interest rate of the loan was mostly above 6%.
status quo
Existing housing loans plus points remain unchanged, and the interest rate gap between old and new housing loans is getting wider and wider
In August 2019, according to the deployment of the State Council, the People's Bank of China reformed and improved the LPR formation mechanism. LPR has become the main reference for loan pricing of financial institutions.
From October 8th of that year, the interest rate of newly issued commercial personal housing loans was formed based on the LPR with the corresponding period of the latest month as the pricing benchmark plus points.
In August 2020, the conversion of existing loan pricing benchmarks was also completed as scheduled.
According to the data disclosed by the central bank, the cumulative conversion of existing personal housing loans is 28.3 trillion yuan, 64.3 million households, and the conversion ratio is 99%, of which 94% are converted to reference LPR pricing.
According to the contract, the actual annual mortgage interest rate of stock mortgage customers is only related to the latest LPR before the interest rate repricing date, but the added part cannot be changed.
A reporter from Beiqing Daily conducted a small survey of readers at the end of last year.
According to the feedback from 42 readers from 15 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country, only two readers from Guangdong chose fixed interest rates, which were 5.135% and 5.88% respectively, and the remaining 40 readers all chose floating interest rates, of which only one The bonus points are negative, which is -39 basis points; 9 people's bonus points are between 20 and 65 basis points; 10 people's bonus points are between 108 and 130 basis points, and 20 people's bonus points are all over 130 basis points, up to 180 basis points.
Last year, LPR has dropped by 35 basis points.
Even so, the latest interest rate applicable to these 30 readers this year is still at a high level of 5.38% to 6.10% (currently the latest LPR over 5 years is 4.3%).
On the other hand, the interest rates of first-time home loan customers for new home purchases have dropped again and again.
Since 2022, the downward pressure on real estate markets in many places has increased.
As a powerful starting point to boost demand and promote market recovery, the mortgage interest rate policy has been adjusted and optimized many times.
The interest rate gap between old mortgage customers and new buyers will further widen.
In January of this year, the long-term mechanism for the dynamic adjustment of the interest rate policy of the newly issued first set of personal housing loans was formally established.
According to the latest notice, cities where the sales price of newly built commercial housing have declined for three consecutive months month-on-month and year-on-year may maintain, lower or cancel the lower limit of the local first-home loan interest rate policy in stages.
According to the statistics of the Shell Research Institute, in January 2023, the average interest rate of first-home loans is 4.10%, and the average interest rate of second-home loans is 4.91%, down 146 basis points and 93 basis points year-on-year respectively.
As of January 16, monitoring data showed that there were 11 cities with first-home loan interest rates lower than 4.1%.
According to the monitoring data of the China Finger Research Institute, as of December 30, 2022, nearly 30 cities across the country have lowered the first-home loan interest rate to below 4%, and some cities have dropped the loan interest rate to historical lows.
It is understood that the lower limit of first-home loan interest rates in many cities has been lowered to 3.7% to 3.9%.
It is worth mentioning that the cities where new mortgage interest rates have been lowered are basically concentrated in third- and fourth-tier cities and some second-tier cities with high inventory pressure in the real estate market. The current housing loan interest rate policy has not been significantly loosened in real estate hotspot cities, especially first-tier cities.
This means that a large number of stock mortgage customers not only have interest rates at a "high level", but also buy house prices at a high level.
investigation
Old customers of housing loans get together to repay their loans in advance, and some banks have quota control
Faced with the huge difference in the interest rates of new and old mortgages, existing mortgage customers are also trying to reduce their "losses".
However, when many customers decide to prepay their loans at the same time, the banks are overwhelmed.
"It's too difficult to repay the loan in advance. I called the bank and told me to call and make an appointment after April."
"I applied for it in November last year, but it was paid back on February 4 this year, and I paid 4 months more interest."
"Every day at two o'clock in the afternoon, I squatted at the bank's APP to grab the loan repayment quota in advance, and returned without success for a week."
"At the beginning, the interest rate was 5.35%, but now it is only 3.8%. I applied for early repayment on October 4 last year, but there has been no movement. In January this year, I called the bank and said that after the Spring Festival. The repayment was successful on May 5."
A reporter from Beiqing Daily found that many netizens on major social platforms expressed that they encountered "difficulty in repaying loans in advance".
According to everyone’s sharing, the processing time of different banks in different regions is quite different, but the queuing time is basically more than 1 month, and 3 months is considered normal. The slowest time will not be deducted until July and August this year. .
A staff member of a bank in Beijing told a Beijing Youth Daily reporter that a large number of prepayment by customers will disrupt the loan business plan of the bank branch and affect the normal operation of the bank, so the bank will control the amount.
If the prepayment quota of the branch has been exhausted, the customer can only wait for the new quota to be released.
Zhang Dawei, chief analyst of Centaline Real Estate, pointed out that there are many reasons for the recent "early repayment tide" of housing loans.
In recent years, due to multiple shocks such as the economic downturn and repeated epidemics, some residents' income has become more unstable, and their expectations for the future are uncertain.
Some borrowers try to reduce the pressure on loan repayment and reduce the burden of housing consumption by repaying all or part of their loans in advance.
At the same time, since 2022, the volatility of my country's financial market has intensified, the investment income of ordinary residents has dropped significantly, and the risk appetite tends to be conservative. They also choose to use part of the funds originally used for investment for early repayment.
In addition, the high interest rate of some existing housing loans is also one of the reasons why borrowers repay early.
Taking Zhengzhou as an example, the latest mortgage interest rate has entered the 3rd era, but the stock mortgage interest rate will be as high as 6% to 7% around 2021.
It is understood that in response to Mr. Zhang's request for a reduction in additional points, his lending bank once replied that the commercial bank's personal housing loan interest rate implements a market-based interest rate, which is affected by the state's regulation of the real estate market and the policies issued by the central bank, banking supervision and other departments. fluctuation.
In the second half of 2021, the real estate market will be booming. At the same time, the scale of personal housing loans will be restricted by national macro-policy regulation, leading to a rise in interest rates; the decline.
Mr. Zhang's 6.4% mortgage interest rate was formulated at the time of customer demand by the bank, based on the actual market conditions at the time and the first set of just-needed housing interest rate policies, and was also bound by the local banking association.
statement
Bank: It is more difficult to lower the interest rate of existing mortgages
"As long as the mortgage interest rate is higher than the wealth management interest rate, and residents expect housing prices to fall, the motivation to repay the loan in advance will always exist." Li Yujia, chief researcher of the Housing Policy Research Center of the Guangdong Provincial Urban Planning Institute, believes that the current pressure on existing mortgages is still high. If Reducing the interest rate of stock mortgages can not only reduce the monthly payment pressure, but also release domestic demand and consumption.
More bank analysts pointed out that it is unlikely that the interest rate of existing housing loans will be readjusted, because the pressure on bank revenue will be very large.
According to the latest data released by the central bank, the balance of personal housing loans at the end of last year was 38.8 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.2%, and the growth rate was 10 percentage points lower than that at the end of the previous year.
Roughly calculated, if the stock mortgage interest rate is lowered by 1 percentage point, the interest rate reduction in the banking industry will be as high as hundreds of billions of yuan a year.
From an operational point of view, it is also very complicated to lower the interest rate of stock mortgages.
Because the interest rates of mortgage customers are not uniformly formulated, there are great individual differences, and are closely related to personal credit investigation. In addition, the market conditions in various regions of the country are also different.
Adjusting the stock interest rate means that some banks may need to check the credit information again, and the workload is very heavy.
Wang Yifeng, chief financial industry analyst at Everbright Securities, pointed out that after 2017, in order to curb the rapid rise in housing prices, mortgage loan interest rates began to be systematically higher than the benchmark loan interest rate, and this is no exception for first-time home buyers.
From 2017 to 2018, the new mortgage loan interest rate rose sharply by 123 basis points from the discounted low of the benchmark interest rate to 5.55%. From 2019 to 2021, it will run at a high level in the range of 5.3% to 5.6%.
Through the analysis of mortgage loans issued since 2009, it is found that the vast majority of existing mortgage loans were issued after 2014. Among them, during the high interest rate period from 2017 to 2021, the estimated stock balance is 28.5 trillion, accounting for about 73%. .
Wang Yifeng believes that due to the continuous impact of the epidemic, the balance sheets of some residents have been damaged. On the one hand, high interest rate mortgages have reduced the safety of residents' balance sheets, and on the other hand, they are not conducive to the recovery of consumption.
From the perspective of "preventing risks, expanding consumption, and promoting fairness", it has certain practical significance by lowering the interest rate of stock mortgages.
Moreover, the interest rate cut on existing mortgage loans will also help alleviate the pressure of early loan repayment to a certain extent, thereby promoting the steady growth of mortgage loans, and even promoting the rapid recovery of housing sales.
But he also said that from a practical point of view, it is difficult to reduce the interest rate of stock housing.
First of all, the current interest rates in various cities are not uniform. If it is to be lowered, how to lower it is a problem, and it may be necessary to sign a supplementary contract with the lender.
Finally, lowering the stock housing interest rate may also affect the stability of the bank's own operations.
Dong Ximiao, chief researcher of China Merchants Union Finance, believes that at present, the problem of excessive interest rate gap between some existing mortgages and new mortgages needs to be paid attention to.
It is recommended that relevant departments speed up the introduction of relevant measures to guide banks to moderately reduce the interest rate of existing mortgages, gradually narrow the interest rate gap between existing mortgages and new mortgages, further reduce the burden on housing consumers, and effectively solve the problem of residents getting together to repay early and illegal "transfers". loan" and other issues.
It can accelerate the decline of LPR with a period of more than 5 years, continue to reduce the interest rates of new and existing housing loans, and reduce the burden of housing consumption on residents.
Text/Reporter Cheng Jie Coordinator/Yu Meiying
New and old mortgage interest rates are different
The difference in monthly payment exceeds 1400 yuan
Ms. Ma from Luoyang City, Henan Province took a loan to buy a house in June 2021, and the interest rate on the first home loan was 6.37%.
Since last year, mortgage interest rates have continued to decline. At present, the lowest loan interest rate for the first home in Luoyang is 4.1%, which is 2.27 percentage points lower than Ms. Ma's loan interest rate at that time.
Taking a loan of 1 million and repaying it in equal installments over 30 years, the monthly payment is 6,235.43 yuan at a mortgage rate of 6.37%, and 4,831.98 yuan at a mortgage rate of 4.1%, a difference of more than 1,400 yuan.
Photo courtesy/Visual China