On the one hand, it is "persuade" to repay the loan in advance, and on the other hand, it is to relax the upper limit of "age for purchasing a house + loan period". Retaliatory "repayment of mortgages has led to the loss of high-quality customer groups. Banks have accordingly raised the threshold for early repayment, lengthened the application time, and introduced various loosening policies to "retain" customers, with both offense and defense.
From the amount of control to the amount of insurance, in the past two years, the attitude of banks towards housing loans has changed. Behind this is the helplessness of the growth rate of personal housing loan balances, and more is the desire for high-quality credit assets.
Relax the maximum "age + deadline"
Mortgage is hot again!
This time it is the loosening of the lending policy.
Recently, a piece of information that "mortgage age has been raised to 80 years old" has been hotly searched, which once again sparked heated discussions in the market.
This information comes from Nanning City, Guangxi Province. On February 13, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily consulted some bankers in Nanning area and learned that the house purchase policy in this area has indeed been loosened, but the 80-year-olds who are not understood by the market can also take loans.
"New customers who have never done a mortgage can enjoy the policy." A personal loan manager of a joint-stock bank said, "The new policy requires that the age of the borrower + the loan period be relaxed from the original no more than 70 years to no more than 80 years. The reason for the relaxation It is a favorable policy launched by the bank for the housing market, but the terms clearly stipulate that the age of the borrower cannot exceed 70 years of age."
According to Chen Xiao, a senior analyst at the Zhuge Housing Data Research Center, the policy refers to the age of the borrower plus the extension of the loan period to 80 years old, which means that buyers who have reached the age of 50 can also apply for a mortgage with a maximum period of 30 years. .
The relaxation of the loan age limit has benefited the middle-aged and middle-aged and elderly homebuyers, and released part of the demand for homebuying.
It is expected that other cities may follow up with relevant policies in the future. For example, some cities with high de-urization pressure and cities with serious aging and a high proportion of elderly people can be given priority.
Judging from the survey, most banks can support the maximum loan age for first-home loans at the age of about 60-70, and the repayment period is 30 years.
According to a person from a large state-owned bank, “The maximum repayment period for the first house in our bank shall not exceed 30 years, and the sum of the age of the borrower + the loan period shall not exceed 75 years. If there are two co-borrowers, the younger one shall be used. judge".
Another person from a large state-owned bank said, "Our bank currently has a 'joint loan' product. The specific requirements for the application of the first house are that the sum of the age of the borrower + the loan period must not exceed 70 years, and the age of the borrower must not exceed 60 years of age."
A number of joint-stock banks also emphasized that "the longest term of personal housing loans in the bank is 30 years, and the maximum loan age does not exceed 70 years of age."
In 2023, the property market credit policy will be gradually relaxed. Since the central bank and the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission announced the establishment of a dynamic adjustment mechanism for the interest rate policy of the first home loan, banks in many places have adjusted the first home loan interest rate.
As of now, according to incomplete statistics from the Zhuge Housing Search Data Research Center, 32 cities have lowered the first-home loan interest rate to below 4%, including some second-tier cities and provincial capitals.
From the reduction of interest rates to the reduction of the down payment ratio, to the mortgage transfer, and the relaxation of the maximum "age + term", the policy relaxation also reflects the bank's determination to guarantee the mortgage quota.
"Persuade" to repay the loan in advance
The other side of the relaxation of age + term restrictions on mortgages and the drop in interest rates for first-home loans in various places is that banks are "strictly guarding against" repaying loans in advance.
Under multiple factors such as the widening interest rate gap between new and old mortgages, the poor performance of the stock market and wealth management income, many home buyers choose to repay their loans in advance to reduce their pressure. Few home buyers shouted: "It's too difficult to pay back the money to the bank!"
"I went to the bank to apply for early repayment of the loan today, and I was told that I need to queue up, and it will be May at the earliest." Li Yang (pseudonym), who wanted to repay the loan early, was at a loss. He complained, "When I signed the mortgage, the bank He said he could repay it at any time, but now not only can he not repay the loan, but he has to charge another three months of interest, making it difficult to send money to the bank.”
Zhao Kai (pseudonym) took out a housing mortgage loan at a high interest rate of 6%, which has been repaid for three years.
"In 2022, I heard about the trend of early repayment of loans. At that time, because of insufficient funds, I communicated with the customer manager and received a response that I could make an online appointment for loan repayment through mobile banking, and support anytime, unlimited times. But in 2023, I want to save enough money. I just found out that the mobile banking app does not support online appointments when I have to repay the loan, and I have to wait in line for 3 months offline, which is really unacceptable to me," said Zhao Kai.
The experience of the above-mentioned home buyers is not an isolated case. "Collecting liquidated damages", "not being able to make appointments", and "closing the entrance for online early repayment" have become a major problem for home buyers.
Why does the bank "persuade" to repay the loan in advance?
The reason is to prevent the large-scale loss of high-quality assets.
A personal loan manager of a joint-stock bank said in an interview with a reporter from Beijing Business Daily, "The buyers who repay their loans early are basically those whose mortgage interest rates were above 5%-6%. Therefore, the number of loan repayment customers has increased. For banks, housing loans have always been relatively high-quality assets, and banks mainly make profits through interest. Now home buyers have reduced the original loan repayment period from 30 years to 5 years or even shorter, and the interest rate difference has disappeared. Customers It is also natural for banks to be anxious if they lose money.”
"Banks cannot restrict customers from repaying loans in advance. By prolonging the time for repaying loans in advance, they hope that home buyers will cancel their loan repayment plans." Said the personal loan manager of the above-mentioned joint-stock bank.
According to Pan Helin, co-director and researcher of the Digital Economy and Financial Innovation Research Center of Zhejiang University International Joint Business School, banks are of course unwilling for customers to repay their loans in advance, because customers who are able to repay their loans in advance must be high-quality customers. If the loan is repaid, the bank's business income will be reduced.
Even if the situation of early loan repayment spreads and becomes a trend, banks will experience large-scale customer loss.
Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangoal Institute, believes that for all banks, housing loans are high-quality assets for banks. A long-term housing loan can provide banks with stable cash flow income and help banks maintain long-term high interest rates for their own businesses. , If there is a phenomenon of large-scale early repayment of loans, it will actually allow the bank to accelerate the withdrawal of funds, resulting in losses.
If there are too many early repayments in a short period of time, the bank will face a situation where it is difficult to find similar high-quality asset investment in the short term, and the cost of increasing income will rise rapidly. Therefore, in order for the bank to no longer pay such a high cost, it will often try to delay it. Repay the loan in advance, or set a high threshold and high liquidated damages to prevent early repayment.
Dilemma
The momentum of offense and defense is also different.
The introduction of loosening policies and setting thresholds for early repayment of loans, behind a series of "both offensive and defensive", is the weak growth rate of personal housing loan balances.
According to the latest "Statistical Report on Financial Institutions' Loan Investment in the Fourth Quarter of 2022" released by the central bank, at the end of 2022, the balance of personal housing loans 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.
The balance of this data in 2021 will be 38.32 trillion yuan, an increase of 11.3% year-on-year, and the growth rate is 3.3 percentage points lower than that at the end of 2020.
The large-scale concentrated early repayment of loans will inevitably disrupt the bank's asset structure and affect profitability. Talking about how to resolve the tide of early repayment and improve the efficiency of the use of funds for home buyers, a person from a city commercial bank was interviewed by Beijing Business Daily The reporter said in an interview, “Because there are currently many home buyers who are gathering together to repay the loan, the method adopted by the bank is to fully explain to the home buyers which type of situation is suitable for early repayment and which type of situation is not suitable, and guide the home buyers to make rational decisions. Choice. Secondly, it is also researching and launching some attractive financial product marketing activities for customers to choose, but the feedback results obtained when collecting customer opinions are not satisfactory.”
"For banks, the growth rate of incremental mortgage business is slowing down, and the stock mortgage business is ushering in a wave of early repayment. The mortgage business is facing relatively big challenges." According to Li Wanfu, an analyst at Rong 360 Digital Technology Research Institute, banks should Do a good job in comforting customers and guide customers to repay loans rationally; for customers who really need to apply, we will provide customers with as convenient a repayment arrangement as possible under the conditions allowed by their own risk management and control capabilities.
More importantly, considering that this wave of early repayment has just started and may last for a while, banks must fully predict the situation, leave room for themselves to ensure normal operation and management, and actively introduce more stable financial management Products attract customers, find new high-quality credit resources, make full use of the large amount of funds recovered, and ensure profits.
Yan Yuejin, research director of Shanghai E-House Real Estate Research Institute, pointed out that statistics on real estate policies and hot events in various places since 2020 show that "mortgage loans" are more likely to attract people's attention than "house prices", and they are also likely to trigger hot topics, including "suspension of work". The tide of loans, the postponement of mortgage repayments, the early repayment of mortgages, the interest rate of mortgages dropped to 3.8%, and the age limit of mortgages extended to 80 years old have all aroused heated discussions among netizens.
This also shows that all localities must carefully handle housing loan issues, and actively explore healthy and scientific housing loan policies from the perspective of safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of home buyers.
He also emphasized that the starting point for the relaxation of policies in various places is to activate reasonable housing consumption demand and to reduce the cost of home buyers.
The red line of "housing to live in, not speculation" has not changed, and the two are not contradictory.
All localities should strengthen publicity to guide market expectations in a healthy and correct direction.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Song Yitong