Real estate: these buyers who plan to pay cash for their accommodation

Once considered the royal road to property, the real estate loan is no longer unanimous. Why acquire a property with a 5% loan when you have already obtained your current home at a rate of 1%? This question, increasingly frequently asked by aspiring owners like Rémi, in his forties, interviewed by Le Figaro Immobilier on September 8, 2023, highlights a paradigm shift in the real estate market. One solution that could potentially resolve this dilemma would be loan portability. This approach, recommended by the National Real Estate Federation, would allow owner-sellers to maintain the conditions of their current loans to acquire their new properties. However, banks, keen to preserve their margins, have so far rejected this proposal categorically.

This resistance from the banks contributed to plunging the real estate loan market into a real crisis. This year, credit production has fallen dramatically, recording a drop of 46% in one year, barely reaching 10 billion euros, according to the Bank of France. This situation is unprecedented since 2017, excluding the health crisis. At the same time, real estate sales fell by 15% to 20% over the same period. But why then, such a gap between the reduction in real estate transactions and the drop in the volume of loans granted?

20 to 30% of buyers want to do without credit

An answer to this question lies in the fact that a growing proportion of households are choosing to acquire housing without resorting to a mortgage, a trend which affects between 20% and 30% of buyers, according to Loïc Cantin, president of the Federation. national real estate. This once marginal phenomenon is gaining momentum, illustrating the deterioration of the market and growing exclusion in the real estate sector. Among the beneficiaries of this trend, we mainly find CSP+ (higher socio-professional category), business leaders, and people with comfortable assets. More and more couples in their fifties, without dependent children, are selling their spacious apartment to buy a smaller one, financed by the sale of their previous property. Foreign buyers, taking advantage of the weak euro against the dollar, also represent a growing share of real estate transactions in France. For example, Americans, benefiting from advantageous parity, invested in property without needing a mortgage loan.