By Chrysostomos Tsoufis

In addition to the negotiation for the additional resources – beyond the €3 billion allowed by the budget rules – the government also successfully completed the negotiations on the “flagship” of its housing policy, which enabled the Prime Minister to announce from the stage of the TIF the program MY HOME 2.

A program which is expected to start shortly after March 2025 and will be twice as large as the first one as Greece has secured resources of €2 billion. In this way, on the one hand, the first phase of the program will have been completed, in the context of which 9,155 disbursements will have been made by the end of the year (at the moment we are just over 7,050).

On the other hand, there will be more than enough time to complete the consultations on the parameters of the program, some of which will be quite different from their form in the first version.

All the changes will be “friendlier” with the aim of at least 15,000 families getting their first home. The first big change concerns the widening of age limits. The new limits apply to people up to 50 years old (or one of the members of the couple is up to 50 years old).

Fatefully, since the targeting is now also on couples who are deep in their professional careers, who possibly have older children, the income criteria also change:

The maximum annual income for a single person increases from €16,000 to €20,000. There is also a minimum income of €10,000 so that there is a kind of guarantee that the beneficiaries will be able to repay their loan

There will be a corresponding increase to €28,000 for the couple’s income, from €24,000 that applied in the first phase, which will be increased by €4,000/child from €3,000/child of the first program

Around €30,000, the income criterion for single-parent families increases.

Whether the amount of the loan provided will also increase – from the €150,000 of the first phase has not yet been closed – However, the fact that with the €1 billion of MY HOUSE 1, 9,155 households acquired a house, while with the €2 billion of MY HOUSE 2, the target is to house 15,000 households, it is there given that there is little chance of changing the quality characteristics of the houses to be acquired.

Based on these:

  • A loan will be provided for the purchase of a home with a commercial value of up to €200,000 to be used exclusively for a first home
  • The loans – if they do not increase – will be up to €150,000 or cover 90% of the value of the property with a repayment period of up to 30 years
  • The buildings covered will have a surface of up to 150 sq.m. age up to 15 years
  • The interest rate will be 0 for 75% of the loan and for the remaining 25% depending on what the respective bank sets, according to the Minister of Finance around 2%. As in the first phase, a full interest rate subsidy will be provided for those with three children and those with many children
  • The loans will be provided without the application of the contribution of Law 128/75, which currently amounts to 0.12%.
  • The borrower is not burdened with the cost of the loan file expenses charged by the respective bank
  • The borrower may partially or fully repay the loan before its due date without any penalty or other charge.