Just a week ago, awaiting the appointment of the Lecornu 2 government, then its possible censorship, a number of brokers real estate creditr were counting on a continued rise in rates by the end of 2025, to 3.50%. The Housing Credit Observatory, the organization which guarantees your real estate loans from banks, is more optimistic this Wednesday, October 16. Michel Mouillart, professor of economics and member of the Observatory, anticipates for the fourth 2025 an average rate of “3.25% at worst”compared to 3.12% in mid-October. Particularly because he does not see “the political-economic environment is getting worse”.
In fact, the brand new Lecornu 2 government has just escaped the censure of the National Assembly this Thursday morning, the deputies having rejected the motions of censure tabled by the group La France Insoumise (LFI) and by the National Rally (RN). A little political stability in perspective, therefore, and calm on the interest rate front. The performance of theequivalent Treasury bond (OAT) at 10 years, that is to say the remuneration demanded by international investors to lend to France on the financial markets, fell to 3.34% this Thursday, while it was close to 3.5% a week earlier.
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However, the yield on the 10-year OAT is one of the main compasses guiding the setting of banks’ real estate loan rates, as they are partly financed on the financial markets. A credit rate of 3.25% on average in the last quarter of 2025, “it’s not bad”insists Michel Mouillart, who was still counting on 3.30% a few months ago. According to his calculations, this would result in “an average rate of 3.14% over the whole of 2025, i.e. a drop of 0.53 points compared to 2024». And the economics professor anticipates for 2026 “a zone of flat rates”at approximately 3.14%.
A rate certainly much higher than the 1% of 2020 and 2021 but, if we ignore this exceptional, even abnormal period, assures Michel Mouillart, “Credit conditions are good today. Households have one of the best purchasing capacities of the last 25 years“. Over the last 12 months, thanks to the fall in rates and the stagnation of old property prices, after two years of fall, households can buy on average “2.4 square meters more than a year ago”he illustrates. An improvement which particularly benefits “borrowers under 35, whom banks continue to support”specifies Michel Mouillart. For the good reason that “Today’s young first-time buyers are tomorrow’s old customers”.
