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Properties: What happens if the dollar increases and I requested a mortgage loan? - La Nacion Propiedades
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Propiedades: ¿qué pasa si aumenta el dólar y pedí un crédito hipotecario?
La suba del dólar blue duplicó la brecha cambiaria en apenas 20 días y surgen las dudas sobre cómo afectará el tipo de cambio a la operatoria de los créditos hipotecarios
www.lanacion.com.ar
May 23, 2024
Properties: What happens if the dollar increases and I requested a mortgage loan?
The rise of the blue dollar doubled the exchange gap in just 20 days and doubts arise about how the exchange rate will affect the operation of mortgage loans
By Maria Josefina Lanzi
The rise of the blue dollar can impact the demand for mortgage loans
Given the rise of the dollar during this last week, the question arises as to how the fluctuations in the exchange rate affect when requesting a loan to buy a house. Is it advisable to ask for them? How can a possible devaluation impact the payment of a loan?
To answer that question, the first thing to keep in mind is that mortgage loans are granted to the creditor in Argentine currency, that is, the amount is delivered in pesos. However, to buy the property, the buyer will need dollars because, in Argentina, properties are sold in dollars . In fact, one of the dilemmas posed by the mortgage loans that came onto the market in recent weeks is: if the loan is in pesos, how are the dollars obtained at the time of writing?
The answer is that the bank grants pesos and the buyer needs to buy the MEP dollar - the official cannot buy it through the stocks - to pay for the property. This process requires 24 hours of parking, which would imply that on the day of the deed, the seller of the property will not be able to immediately access the dollars. Today, with this process, no one would agree to sign a sale without the dollars in hand, which is why the market expects some solution. "One way out could be for the Government to enable the purchase of the official dollar with the PAIS tax so that it becomes closer to the value of the MEP, another is to eliminate the parking and a third option could be for the bank to sell the dollars at the moment, charging a percentage for the risk involved in absorbing the parking,” proposes economist Federico González Rouco.
But beyond that process, whoever is thinking about taking out a line may be overwhelmed by the rise that the blue dollar has had in recent days. In numbers, the blue dollar is trading at $1,275 for sale, which implied a daily increase of $45 (+3.7%) and a total rise of 13.8% so far this week (it climbed $155). This scenario, logically, affects the total amount of loan that will need to be requested to purchase a house: “ This may be the most sensitive point when requesting a mortgage loan , that the amount of pesos necessary is not triggered at the time of paying.” the property,” explains Germán Gómez Picasso, founder of Reporte Inmobiliario.
Mortgage loans are granted to the creditor in Argentine currency, that is, the amount is delivered in pesos
“The person who is going to take out a loan has to take into account that the process takes approximately two months ,” explains González Rouco, an economist who works at Empiria, Hernán Lacunza's economic consulting firm, and elaborates: “ if you take out a loan with the dollar at $1000, you have to be aware that those pesos will probably buy fewer dollars in a few months. That is a totally possible scenario ,” says the expert. He suggests doing this operation with some leftover, either having a little more savings than necessary or asking the bank for a little more money than you need, when applying for the loan, since "the more initial margin you can have , better".
In that sense, Rouco explains that " it is key for banks to accelerate the credit operation time , so that there is not such a long period in the middle and the margin of volatility of the dollar is limited."
Gómez Picasso adds that this point is as important as inflation: “ The less inflation there is, the greater demand mortgage loans will have and, at the same time, the greater predictability people have regarding the value of the future dollar, the greater traction this type of loan will have. credits.”
In any case, the specialist recognizes that there is so much need for housing that he does not believe that it will end up being a variable that leads people to withdraw; “The number of requests there were shows that the need is immense,” he explains.
There are already 13 banks that launched UVA mortgage credit lines to the market
What dollar will be used for this type of operations?
To answer this question, specialists once again put on the table that an economy with stocks, "we must see how the purchase of dollars for this type of operations is defined." González Rouco explains that in 2019 when the stocks began (and at the time when UVA mortgage loans had already been granted) the Central Bank promulgated a resolution in which it established that up to a certain amount and meeting certain requirements (such as being used for access of first home) the official exchange rate could be accessed . ” In any case, this resolution was removed at the end of 2023.Currently, given that the dollar clampdown continues, a method to acquire this currency without resorting to the informal market is through the purchase of the MEP dollar. This is the dollar stock market, a financial modality that allows the acquisition of bonds with pesos, and then sell them in dollars.
The purchase and sale of the MEP dollar can be carried out through financial intermediaries or directly from the home banking of certain banks. Once you have an account on a platform that allows the purchase of MEP dollars, you can proceed to purchase the bond, which will be sold automatically the next business day after a “parking” period established by the regulatory authority.
The rise of the blue dollar could impact the demand for mortgage loans
Now, that parking time (which is between 24 to 48 hours) runs the risk of the value of the dollar changing in the middle. In that case, specialists point out that it will be good to foresee this possibility between the parties: it must be agreed verbally or with a paper signed outside between private parties that, if the exchange rate varies and the loan in pesos with which it was paid remains below, an arrangement will be agreed upon later.
In short, there is no doubt that it will be necessary to define the way in which these operations will be carried out, either by “removing the parking time or allowing access to the official dollar again, since until a resolution arises it is difficult for the problems to appear. credits, because “the seller is not going to accept pesos or parking,” says Rouco.
Finally, we must analyze how a devaluation would impact the quota. In this case, the impact that a rise in the exchange rate -pass through- has on prices could become a problem because it generates inflation, the variable by which UVA credits are updated. This means that the installments will rise, “but the debt will represent a lower percentage of the value of the home, analyzes González Rouco. For his part, Carlos Spina, partner of Argencons, the developer who created the Quartier brand, believes that we should not focus so much on the dollar, but rather on the evolution of salaries. The impact on the purchasing power of the person who took it will be conditional on the update of his salary.
In numbers, although the distance is shortening, salaries continue to lag behind inflation. In March they had a general increase of 10.3%, which placed them just below the 11% shown by the consumer price index (CPI). In the quarterly evolution they were also close, with an increase of 45%, versus 51.6%, respectively, but in the interannual measurement the gap is wide (208% versus 287.9%). These figures arise from the Salary Index published by the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec).
Looking ahead, the drop in inflation starting in April opens the possibility for real wages to stop falling and begin a recovery process, although from very low levels. The evolution of inflation is fundamental because it determines the increase in the quota, but another variable to observe is the fluctuations experienced by citizens' real salaries, which since December have fallen by 25% compared to inflation. “The key is for salaries to grow more than inflation,” emphasizes González Rouco, and recognizes that today salaries are at a historic low, which is why, if the economy grows, they should be recomposed.
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