Interest rates are down, why are customers not interested in borrowing money to buy houses?

According to a survey by VTC News reporters, current home loan interest rates at many banks continue to decrease, approaching the 10%/year mark.

One of the banks with the lowest home loan interest rates on the market today is Woori Bank at 7.2%/year, with a maximum loan ratio of 80% and a maximum loan term of 30 years.

Next are the banks: SHB, MBBank, Hong Leong Bank all have interest rates of 7.5%/year with maximum loan ratios from 75 - 80%.

Other banks also have quite high preferential interest rates including: Shinhan Bank (7.6%/year); BIDV (7.8%/year); Agribank and Vietcombank (8%/year); HDBank (8.2%/year)...

Although home loan interest rates have decreased, many customers are still not interested in borrowing from banks to buy houses.

Mr. Tran Hoang (Dong Da, Hanoi) said that he wanted to buy an apartment in Ha Dong to change to a more comfortable living environment for his children. However, due to lack of capital, he planned to borrow 1 billion VND from the bank with a preferential interest rate of 7.5% for the first 12 months.

After 1 year, the floating interest rate will be at 11-12%, depending on the bank's announcement.

Interest rates are down, but home buyers are still hesitant to borrow from banks.

“ Both principal and interest, I estimate that I will have to pay nearly 15 million VND per month. Meanwhile, the costs of studying, eating, shopping... have taken up almost all of my monthly income, so where is the money to pay the bank interest? After careful consideration, I decided to wait a little longer to find a cheaper place to live and borrow less from the bank to reduce the pressure ," said Mr. Hoang.

According to Mr. Hoang, although home interest rates have decreased, compared to workers' income, these interest rates are still quite high.

The leader of a real estate company in Ho Chi Minh City said that many banks have reduced interest rates for both new and old loans, but not too much and will follow the roadmap. Many investors used a lot of financial leverage in the past, and until now have not paid off their bank debts because they cannot sell their products. Therefore, even if the bank reduces interest rates, they still do not dare to "take risks" and borrow more to hold more goods.

According to this person, the urgent solution at this time is to regain customer confidence and improve transactions and sales. To achieve this, the management agency needs to introduce positive policies so that people and investors with cash can feel secure in investing.

Mr. Pham Duc Toan - General Director of EZ Real Estate Investment and Development Joint Stock Company (EZ Property) also said that in fact, many banks have reduced interest rates for both new and old loans, but not too deeply, but will follow the roadmap.

According to him, real estate investors with old loans are "out of luck" and have no other source of income to maintain. Therefore, even though interest rates have decreased, these investors will still have a hard time making ends meet. Meanwhile, those who have not borrowed from banks find that the current preferential interest rates are still very high, and using financial leverage will be very risky.

According to Mr. Toan, in the previous period, investors used a lot of financial leverage, from several billion to tens of billions of VND. Each month, they needed several hundred million VND to pay off bank loans, which was not a small amount.

The reduction in lending rates has only had a partial impact on market transactions. Most of the transactions will come from products that meet real needs. However, the number of these transactions will be insignificant because everyone is still in a wait-and-see mode.

Dr. Can Van Luc - Chief Economist of BIDV, Member of the National Financial and Monetary Policy Advisory Council also said that investors can use financial leverage through bank loans but should not abuse it.

Currently, bank lending rates are decreasing. However, whether or not to borrow from a bank depends largely on each person's financial capacity, that is, income, assets... of the people. Because, although bank interest rates have decreased, they are still at a high level.

A bank leader also said that the economy is facing many difficulties, leading to people's jobs, business, and trade "going down". This causes real estate transactions and sales to also decrease, despite low interest rates.

“ The volume of real estate transactions in the market has decreased sharply, so customers will not have much demand for loans. High or low bank interest rates are only a very small factor. The important thing is that if people do not buy, sell or trade, banks cannot lend, ” said the leader.

According to this representative, the bank is eager to lend money to people and businesses because the bank itself has “excess money”. However, if people do not buy, sell, or transact, it will be very difficult to “pump money” into the market.

Chau Anh

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