“Safe Credit 2 percent” after a month. Experts calculate its real price

Next week it will be a month since the launch of the “Secure Credit 2%” program. The program is to allow people (the age criterion is 45) to buy real estate, who have never owned their own flat or house, because they could not afford it for a long time. The program offered a loan with an interest rate of only 2% for the first 10 years of its repayment, thanks to state subsidies.

What is the real price of the “2% Loan”?

As Wojciech Piesta, an expert on financial products at rankomat.pl, notes in an interview with “Rzeczpospolita”, the actual interest rate on “Safe Credit” is “in real terms higher than 2 percent”.

– Even on the PKO BP website there is a kind of warning: “Remember that »Secure Credit 2%« does not mean that the interest rate on your loan must be 2%.” – says Piesta, emphasizing that this results from the provisions of the relevant act on state aid in saving for housing purposes and the construction of financial products under the program.

mFinanse expert Andrzej Wojda points out that during the period of subsidies, the interest rate on “Safe Credit” is fixed and amounts to 2 percent, increased by the bank’s margin. However, the subsidies are applied only for the first 10 years, and after this period the conditions are to change.

The newspaper analyzes “Safe Loan 2 percent”. in two aspects: in the first 10 years with subsidies from the state budget and throughout the loan period. It turns out, when it comes to the period with subsidies, lenders have tried to minimize their appetite for earnings and offer customers really very good conditions.

– Some banks offer an interest rate without subsidies of 7.14 percent, which is exactly at the level of the “subsidy rate” set by BGK. And this means that the interest rate adjusted for the subsidy is exactly 2%. – emphasizes Jarosław Sadowski, chief analyst at Expander Advisors.

According to the newspaper, such an indicator is used by: PKO BP, Bank Pekao, VeloBank and Bank PBS.

In turn, in Alior Bank it is possible to obtain a rate even lower than 2%. The daily points out that Thursday’s interest rate without subsidies (for the representative case described by the bank) was 6.909 percent, which means that the interest rate adjusted for the subsidy was only 1.769 percent, i.e. less than 2 percent.

However, the total costs of the “Safe Loan” look completely different if we take into account the entire repayment period and various additional fees, such as bank commission, fee for BGK for granting a down payment guarantee, the cost of life or job loss insurance, or the amount of the fee for using a bank account and payment card. – There is also the cost of real estate insurance, PCC in the case of purchase on the secondary market, although it is to be abolished when buying the first apartment in your life, or the cost of establishing a mortgage – says Jaroslaw Sadowski.

The lowest APRC in Pekao

Therefore, the appropriate indicator used to compare the offers of “Secure Loan 2 percent”. the annual percentage rate of charge (APR) may vary from bank to bank. In this approach, the proposals presented on the banks’ websites on July 27 show that the lowest APRC rate is currently offered by Bank Pekao (4.72%). This applies to a loan in the amount of PLN 335.1 thousand. PLN for 27 years, without the customer’s own contribution. In Bank BPS, the APRC would be 4.86 percent, in VeloBank 4.92 percent, in PKO BP 4.96 percent, and in Alior Bank 5.22 percent. (in this case, the estimates concern a loan of PLN 346,000 for 25 years, with own contribution for approx. 20% of the property value).

– In addition to the APRC, which determines the cost of the loan as a percentage per year, it is also worth looking at the totalyou the cost of the loan. This can also be an important indicator showing the final price of “Safe Loan” – Andrzej Wojda advises.

In this perspective, the offer of Bank BPS or PKO BP seems to be the most attractive, where the total cost of the loan is approx. 75 percent. loan amount. The least attractive is VelobBank’s offer (over 90%). “Rzeczpospolita” points out, however, that these are calculations of very different offers. PKO BP’s offer assumes a PLN 290,000 loan for 25 years, and VeloBank’s PLN 360,000 for 30 years.

Why is “Safe Loan 2%” still attractive?

Experts emphasize that, despite all reservations, “Safe Loan 2 percent”. is a very attractive product compared to the current market offer. – The act stipulates that the bank that grants the “2% Loan” cannot offer worse conditions in terms of margin, interest rate and commission than those applicable in its standard offer of mortgage loans. Perhaps customers are disappointed, but the APRC provided by the banks for the “Safe 2% loan”. it is still lower than the current offer, where the APR starts from about 8.5 percent, and most offers are over 9 percent. – sums up Wojciech Piesta.

To the “Safe Loan 2 percent” program Eight banks have joined so far. These are: PKO BP, Pekao, Alior and VeloBank, as well as four cooperatives (Bank BPS, BS Rzemiosła in Krakow, BS in Brodnica and SGB-Bank SA).