Caixa Econômica Federal lent BRL 140.6 billion in real estate financing contracts in 2021, up 21% over 2020, the bank’s president, Pedro Guimarães, reported this Wednesday (19), who said it was a historic record. For 2022, the forecast is that this number will grow by 10%.
The bank’s total real estate financing portfolio stood at R$553.8 billion.
For the first time, the amount allocated to financing by the SBPE, with funds from savings, and which targets middle-class consumers, was greater than that allocated to the Casa Verde e Amarela housing program, which uses FGTS resources.
BRL 82.8 billion were contracted by SBPE, 58.9% of the bank’s total, against BRL 57.8 billion invested in Casa Verde e Amarela, which recorded a drop in the amount of funds: in 2020, BRL 59.3 billions had been used by Casa Verde e Amarela and its predecessor, Minha Casa Minha Vida.
The increase in resources used by the SBPE was 54% over 2020. In comparison with 2018, the increase is 513.4%.
According to Guimarães, one of the factors for the increase in the share of credit with funds from savings is the fact that some projects planned for Casa Verde and Amarela were altered and sold by SBPE.
The increase in construction costs, which reached 14.3% in 2021, according to the INCC (National Construction Cost Index), made developers choose to sell their properties outside the housing program, which has a limit for the sale value of the units.
The drop in interest rates for real estate financing, recorded between 2020 and the first half of 2021, driven by the fall in the Selic rate, also attracted more consumers to the system that uses savings resources.
Even so, Caixa was responsible for 99.99% of real estate financing under the Casa Verde e Amarela program, with a total of R$ 57.8 billion contracted.
Now, with the basic interest rate at 9.25% and on an upward trend, financing rates have also increased.
Data from real estate brokerage Akamines, released by Reuters, show that the lowest rate charged by Caixa is 8.3% per year, while it is 9.1% at Itaú, 9.5% at Bradesco and 9.99% at Santander. —in all cases, the TR is added.
Guimarães reaffirmed, however, that the bank should not increase its financing rate further, because it is based on the future interest rate for eight years and the necessary increase would have already been passed on to the consumer.
“Even if the Selic increases, we already have this increase in the interest rate, which happened about two months ago, priced,” he said.
For him, even with the most expensive financing rates, now is a good time to acquire a property. “We believe it is a time to buy, we have financing like never before and there is negotiation in real estate prices”.
Caixa did not reveal the default rate of contracts in 2021, which will only be disclosed in the institution’s income statement, but Guimarães said that it is “absolutely under control”, and that it is lower than that recorded in the third quarter of 2021.
At that time, the default rate of the bank’s broad loan portfolio was 2.16%.
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