Giorgetti: “It is essential to lengthen the duration of mortgages. The impact of the installments is sometimes unsustainable for families”

“You have to bear the consequences of the shock (of interest rates, ed.) that recent history has handed us”. After Matteo Salvini (yesterday), today Giancarlo Giorgetti underlines that «the lengthening of the duration of variable rate mortgages is indispensable and urgent. The impact of the installments is sometimes unsustainable for families ».

Palazzo Auditorium della Tecnica, Eur, Rome, this morning. When the Minister of the Treasury asked the audience for an effort to control the cost of increases in mortgages for households and businesses, the president of the Banks’ Association had already given him availability.

“Banks in Italy maintain almost two-thirds of mortgages at fixed rates, with funding rates constantly increasing, and, upon request, they can extend the duration of mortgages for those who are up to date with payments or make subrogations”. Antonio Patuelli says this is nothing new: the world of banks has always been in favor of the measures necessary to avoid an uncontrolled rise in rates. “The government is monitoring the consequences on families and businesses,” says Giorgetti.

However, Patuelli specifies that the possibility of extending the installments or resorting to subrogation concerns “those who are up to date with payments” while it is not possible “for those who are late” due to the “too rigid” rules imposed by the EBA, the European Banking Regulatory Authority.

According to estimates by online mortgages, after the latest increases, the average Tan (nominal annual rate) of a fixed-rate mortgage stands at 3.70 percent, while the best offer does not go beyond 2.99. In the case of variable rate mortgages, the average Tan is 4.36 per cent, the best offer is 3.70. A Nomisma survey at the beginning of March explained that with the rise in interest rates and the increase in inflation, a 20-year mortgage payment will weigh on average 30 percent more on Italians’ income than just a year ago. The latest estimates by Istat on the disposable income of Italians (they are from yesterday) however give a less dramatic reading: in the first quarter of 2023 it grew (compared to the previous one) by 3.2, by 8.2 if compared with a year ago. The increase is due to a series of factors: the increase in income from work, the drop in the tax burden and a positive consequence (for households that invest) of the increase in interest rates, i.e. the corresponding increase in yields on government bonds .