VTB became the leader in the number of issuances of preferential mortgages in the Russian Federation in March 2024

RBC, which had Dom.RF analyzes at its disposal, nevertheless emphasizes: if we compare the data for the first quarter as a whole, Sber remains a “leader”: the total share of concluded preferential mortgage agreements is 44% (for VTB is 19%).

This reassessment of forces is associated with the tightening of the conditions of the state program for preferential mortgages (increase in the amount of the down payment, reduction in state subsidies, the need to work with specific developers, etc.). After such changes, Sberbank, as expected, introduced restrictions in January: only those borrowers who purchased housing from direct partners of Sber could receive a loan. This decision caused a departure of clients.

All banks in the program faced the same problems and each solved them in their own way: some increased the initial payment, others left access to the service exclusively to payroll clients, etc. But the key tool was the abolition of mortgage commissions for associated developers.

Only in March did Sber partially cancel commissions for developers when issuing preferential mortgages to regain its leadership in the market. But the new leader of the March, VTB, did it at the beginning of the year.

The bank admitted that the need to work with specific developers also initially cost the organization some clients, but after the abolition of the commission for the issuance of preferential mortgages from partners, the indicators increased. VTB expects that by the end of March the demand for preferential mortgages will amount to 150 billion rubles.

The “subsidiary” of the operator “Dom.RF”, the bank of the same name, initially did not introduce commissions for partner developers, which allowed the organization to increase its share in the total number of preferential mortgages issued to 12% quarterly. (previously the proportion was 7%). The same measure allowed Sovcombank to break out of zero indicators and reach a share of 4%, and Promsvyazbank to “grow” from 2 to 4%.

Thanks to the abolition of the commission, both the number of new issues (in Dom.RF – 2.2 times compared to February) and the volume of loans (in Dom.RF – 2.5 times, in PSB – 3 times) increases times).

The director of the Dom.RF analytical center, Mikhail Goldberg, calls the ongoing changes “tectonic” and also draws attention to the fact that the market has become complex and “fragmented”, without uniform and transparent conditions for the borrower .

However, despite all the difficulties, in January-March 2024, banks approved 283 thousand mortgage loans, which is only 18% compared to January-March 2023. Analysts separately note that the number of loans granted with state support not only did not decrease, but even increased to 147 thousand transactions (12% more than in the same period last year).