Bulgarian mortgage rates down 1 pct point w/w to 7.6%
Mortgage rates slipped 1 percentage point over the past week after 3 banks lowered the cost of borrowing for home buyers, the central bank reported on Tuesday, November 1.
The central bank statistics cover mortgages in the local currency only. For mortgages in other currencies the rates dropped by 0.5 percentage point.
The central bank does not offer data about HVB Bank Biochim\’s mortgages in Swiss francs.
According to central bank […]
Mortgage rates slipped 1 percentage point over the past week after 3 banks lowered the cost of borrowing for home buyers, the central bank reported on Tuesday, November 1.
The central bank statistics cover mortgages in the local currency only. For mortgages in other currencies the rates dropped by 0.5 percentage point.
The central bank does not offer data about HVB Bank Biochim\’s mortgages in Swiss francs.
According to central bank data, the average effective interest rate stands at 7.68% versus 8.55% a week ago. Interest rates had been creeping up steadily for the past five months, by 1.22 percentage points (14%), hitting 10% in early September, when in early October in an attempt to lure clients DSK Bank, Bulbank, Postbank and Raiffeisenbank, the big players on the local market, reduced rates to about 1.75% for the first year and 8% for the remainder of the repayment period.
Bankers comment that further rate cuts are unlikely for the time being, given that the central bank and the IMF are discussing a new raft of anti-lending measures.
Over the mid term, the rates are expected to go down by 1 percentage point to 6-6.5%.
Had it not been for the recently implemented credit-curbing measures, the interest rates would have lurched much lower, bankers commented.
According to central bank data, mortgages added up to 1.73 bln levs at end-September. They are the fastest gaining component of the banking system assets with a 4% growth (by 66.5 mln levs) for the past month and 124% (by 960 mln levs) year-on-year.
Central bank data for the half-year period shows that DSK Bank controlled 34% of the Bulgarian mortgage market, followed by United Bulgarian Bank with 20% and Bulbank with 11%.(Dnevnik)
