The effort rate criterion is preventing some young people from using the State guarantee to buy a house and there are banks that increase the spread when the loan is secured, professionals in the sector told Lusa.
Aimed at young people between 18 and 35 years of age, the public guarantee, which became operational at the beginning of this year, applies to housing credit contracts signed until the end of 2026 and allows the State to guarantee up to 15% of the transaction value.
Despite the few days of implementation of the measure, Catarina Matos, deputy director of DS Intermediários de Crédito, told Lusa that the brokerage's stores have already made three house purchase deeds through loans with the public guarantee and have several scheduled.
"The demand for this measure has been very high. We are seeing a great deal of support from young couples", explained Catarina Matos, noting, however, that there are also many situations in which applications are rejected by the bank.
Some of these rejections, she says, involve people who would have been able to have the loan approved if it were a normal process – that is, if they were requesting up to a maximum of 90% of the home's valuation – but who, by using the guarantee and consequently up to 100% financing, do not meet the effort rate criterion.
Ana Paula Silva, from Century21, also says that she has already recorded several cases in which young people are unable to access 100% financing because they 'bumped into' the effort rate criterion (which cannot go beyond 35%).
In practice, and combining this guarantee with the rules for granting housing loans, the measure allows young people to obtain 100% of the home's appraised value, instead of the 90% limit that applies to most customers.
“What I'm finding is that many people have no idea of the income required to access 100%, because the issue of the effort rate remains and most cases are not viable”, stated the Century21 consultant.
Of the dozens of situations she has dealt with since the beginning of the year, only about a dozen are eligible for 100% financing, says Ana Paula Silva, adding that from what she has observed so far, the 100% only helps those who were already in a position to buy a house – what they lacked was the savings reserve to provide as a ‘down payment’ because in many cases they are people who have only recently started working.
Another situation they point to is a slight increase in the spread (bank profit margin) by some banks when simulating credit with a state guarantee.
"There are one or two situations in which, when we tell the bank that it is a loan with a state guarantee, the spread is increased", said Catarina Matos, noting that this is also one of the reasons why some exceed the effort rate limit.
Ana Paula Silva told Lusa that so far, in the cases she has been involved in, she has managed to maintain the spreads, but added that she has heard of situations in which there has been an increase.
The state guarantee can be used by those who are buying their first permanent home whose value does not exceed 450 thousand euros. Beneficiaries cannot be owners of an urban building or part of an urban building and cannot have income above the eighth IRS bracket (around 81 thousand euros of annual taxable income).
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Source: Lusa
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