Real estate credit: What if your business paid part of the interest?

MEPs of all stripes have signed a bill intended to encourage more companies to finance all or part of the real estate credit interests of their primary-acting employees.

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Despite their almost continuous decrease since their peak at more than 4% in the fall of 2023, mortgage rates remain today above 3%. A level that still prevents many first-time buyers to become owners, for lack of sufficient income and contribution. This is why the socialist deputy Valérie Rossi has just deposited, in the National Assembly, a bill “Aiming to strengthen the purchasing power of primary-acting employees”. This text puts a spotlight on a device over 100 years old but little known to the general public: the care of all or part of the employee’s real estate loan interest by his employer.

Take the example of an employee wishing to buy his first accommodation, which requires total funding of 250,000 euros. His business decides to take charge of 1% of the interest rate From 3.85% that a bank offers to the employee, on a portion of the credit, however limited to 100,000 euros. The employee will therefore pay only 2.85% interest on 100,000 euros in loan, saving 15,712 euros* a total of the length of the loan. Note that the employee will lose the benefit of the loan subsidized by his employer in the event of a break in the employment contract, for any cause whatsoever, death or rental of the financed property.

A transpartisan bill

This mechanism is not new. It was created in 1921 by the financial company for ownership of ownership (Sofiap), a subsidiary of the postal bank and the SNCF. First circumscribed to public enterprises, it was extended at the end of 2022 to the private sector, whether large groups or SMEs. No less than 600,000 employees are today eligible for this system, combined with zero -rate loan and 1%housing action loan, both reserved for people who buy their main residence for the first time.

Have you never heard of it? It’s normal! Sofiap’s partner companies pay 55% of social charges on the loan interests they take care of. What represents “”an obstacle to the generalization of the system »estimates Valérie Rossi, in the presentation of the reasons for her bill. The deputy therefore offersLower the rate of social charges On the loan interest thus funded, from 55% to 20%, with a ceiling for taking charge by the employer of 3,709.44 euros per year and per employee. It is still necessary that his text is examined, then adopted, by Parliament. In any case, nearly 60 deputies co-signed it, of which parliamentarians experienced in housing issues and not being in the socialist ranks, such as Lionel Causse, Daniel Labaronne, David Amiel (Ensemble for the Republic), Thibault Bazin (Republican right) and Mickaël Cosson (Democrats).

*Sofiap calculation