Original title: (Economic Observation) It was revealed in one place in China that "mortgage can be repaid until the age of 80". Is it good or bad?
China News Agency, Beijing, February 14th (Reporter Pang Wuji) Recently, local media reported that many real estate projects in Nanning, Guangxi announced that "the age limit for housing mortgage loans can be extended to 80 years old", which sparked extensive discussions.
A reporter from China News Agency learned that it is true that "mortgage loans can be repaid up to the age of 80", but it is currently limited to individual banks.
China CITIC Bank Nanning Branch stated that the outside world misunderstood this regulation.
Recently, the head office issued a unified document, in which the "age of the lender plus the loan period" was relaxed to no more than 80 years old, but the rule of "the age of the lender not more than 70 years old" has not changed.
The branch stated that the premise of the relevant business is that the bank has verified that the lender's income flow meets the loan requirements.
So far, the new regulations have not yet been implemented.
The "lender's age plus loan period" is relaxed to no more than 80 years old, which means that if a mortgage applicant is 50 years old this year, he can apply for a loan for up to 30 years.
However, if the mortgage applicant is over 70 years old, he can no longer apply for a loan.
At present, most places and most banks in China stipulate that the "age of the lender plus the loan term" shall not exceed 70 years old, and some banks have relaxed it to no more than 75 years old.
In fact, the policy of "mortgage repayment until the age of 80" has precedents.
At the beginning of 2019, according to local media reports in Hangzhou, a bank in Hangzhou adjusted its housing loan policy, stipulating that housing mortgage loans can be granted up to the age of 80, and parents and children can relay repayments.
Some people are worried that the elderly over 70 years old are basically incapable of working. How can they bear the pressure of repayment?
Zhang Dawei, chief analyst of Centaline Real Estate, told a reporter from China News Agency that although borrowing some products from individual banks, mortgages can be repaid up to the age of 80, but the actual repayment obligations mostly fall on the children and relatives of the elderly.
In most cases, people over the age of 50 or who are about to retire rarely choose to buy a house with a loan.
The "2022 Housing Demand Insight Report for the Elderly" jointly released by the School of Labor and Human Resources of Renmin University of China and the Shell Research Institute last year pointed out that due to the influence of traditional consumption concepts and age restrictions on the loan period, the elderly are more inclined to buy houses with full payment , accounting for as high as 83.2%.
Zhang Dawei said that the reason why the elderly apply for loans is mostly for their children.
If the elderly buy another house for their children who already have a house under their name, the children can enjoy the parents' purchase quota or first-time loan discount (lower interest rate and down payment ratio).
In order to ensure the safety of funds, banks also have strict review mechanisms, such as asking family members to guarantee, and some banks also require their children to be designated as co-repayers.
Therefore, in most cases, this is a relay loan in disguise.
Zhang Dawei believes that the logic behind relay loans is actually "passing loans from generation to generation", which is not worth advocating.
However, specific analysis of specific issues is beneficial to some families in need.
Chen Xiao, a senior analyst at the Zhuge Housing Data Research Center, said that it is necessary to pay attention to the background of the policy.
On the one hand, as the aging population intensifies and the average life expectancy increases, middle-aged and elderly people buy more houses. At the same time, the demand for improvement has accelerated in recent years, and middle-aged and elderly people are also the main force.
On the other hand, the policy of postponing retirement has been focused on, and some older groups can also have stable jobs and income security, and have stable repayment capabilities.
Taking these factors into consideration, Chen Xiao believes that relaxing the age limit on loans will benefit the middle-aged and elderly homebuyers and release part of the demand for homebuying.
At the same time, parents also have the opportunity to buy a house with their children to bear the pressure of repaying the loan, which indirectly relieves the pressure of some young people to buy a house.
Will the use of relay loans encourage real estate speculation?
Zhang Dawei said that the relay loan does have the effect of amplifying the leverage of residents, but there is no need to demonize the relay loan.
On the one hand, because the procedures are relatively complicated and there are credit records, most buyers who use relay loans do have the need for self-occupation and are not real estate speculators.
On the other hand, at present, relay loans are only provided by individual places and individual banks, and the review is very strict.
In fact, even if there is no relay loan, for the vast majority of Chinese families, parents and children are often hidden co-payers.
In addition, the current Chinese property market is not very hot, and home buyers are relatively rational, so the possibility of blindly using relay loans to enter the market is unlikely.
(over)