Twelve billion złoty is an impressive sum. That is how much the government wanted to spend on partial repayment of housing loans for people whose family has just had another child. However, so far, parents have received only 0.02% of the aforementioned sum. Experts from the RynekPierwotny.pl portal decided to explain why the Family Housing Credit, a program that assumes “repayment of a loan for a child” has turned out to be so unpopular. It is worth noting that earlier (as part of the Mieszkanie dla Młodych program), a similar idea had not gained the interest of borrowers.
“Paying off a child’s loan”: it’s been a failure before
Many people may no longer remember that the idea of repaying part of a housing loan after the birth of another child appeared more than ten years ago. We are talking about the time when the Housing for the Young program was being prepared. Its creators assumed that after the birth of the third or subsequent child or after the adoption of a third/subsequent child, a household participating in the MdM program would receive a one-time repayment of the housing loan. The aforementioned repayment amounted to 5% of the conversion value of the apartment, i.e. the product of the average conversion rate of the cost of replacing 1 square meter of residential buildings and the limited, conversion area.
The condition for granting partial repayment of the loan was the addition of a third or subsequent child to the household within five years of purchasing the property. How many households took advantage of such additional repayment of housing debt? Unfortunately, it turns out that not many. Data from Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego from the end of February 2024 indicate that by that time 2,581 people could count on additional debt repayment, and the total amount of support granted to them was PLN 28.18 million. The current result is probably not much higher. In this context, it is worth recalling that the MdM program operated from Q1 2014 to Q1 2018.
Family Housing Loan: not only the rate is a problem
Despite the above-described failure of the “loan repayment for a child” model, the government decided to try it once again. We are talking about the Guaranteed Housing Loan, which later changed its name to the Family Housing Loan. However, the rules for family repayment have not changed, i.e. the solution that after the birth of the second child guaranteed and still guarantees repayment of the debt of PLN 20,000. In the case of the enlargement of the household by a third or subsequent child, the family repayment is PLN 60,000. In addition, the authors of the analyzed program also provided a BGK guarantee replacing the own contribution, i.e. the solution more commonly used for the “Safe 2% Loan”.
How did potential borrowers react to another offer to repay a loan after the birth of a child? It turns out that they reacted coolly. By the end of Q1 2024, only 1,960 loans with a possible family repayment had been granted. On the other hand, the 63 family repayments granted cost the state PLN 2.4 million. It is worth comparing this result with the state’s previously planned expenditure on family repayments. In the perspective of 2032, they were to exceed PLN 12 billion. So far, 0.02% of the previously planned sum has been used.
The popularity of the described program (Guaranteed Housing Loan/Family Housing Loan) was certainly reduced by the fact that shortly after its introduction, market interest rates on new housing loans rose significantly. This is due to the effects of the cycle of rapid increases in NBP interest rates that began after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In this context, it is worth remembering that loans with family repayment were and are subject to market interest. But interest is not everything. It also seems that the mechanism of family repayments itself could have been better promoted by the state.
The saved PLN 12 billion will not support the Start Credit program?
The scale of the family repayment loan program to date was summarized by the government while preparing a draft law to introduce the Start Loan program. Let us remember that the government intended to end the further granting of “Family Housing Loans” with the new program. The deletion of the aforementioned PLN 12 billion as expenditure on family repayments was to serve indirectly to partially finance the new loan subsidy program. However, the prospects for the Start Loan program have recently become much more complicated. At the same time, uncertainty also appeared as to whether the granting of family repayment loans will be continued in 2025.
