Mortgage loan

Banks are recording a rebound in demand for mortgage and consumer loans, and for credit to very small enterprises, projecting the average rate of new credit at 40 percent for the 2019-2020 period.

It envisages converting the remaining part of the debt of the loan into euros, and reducing the amount obtained through that conversion by 38 percent, the government has nnounced.

Local banks are expecting a recovery in the mortgage loan market in 2019 after several years of very low activity, with talk of 30 percent annual growth in new credit.

This comes on top of the 20 percent increase in demand last year that took new bank financing to the housing market from 260 million euros in 2017 to almost 320 million euros in 2018.

Lawmakers in Greece have begun debating tougher regulations to deal with household insolvency after the financial crisis left nearly half of mortgages and commercial loans non-performing or in distress.
The debate started Wednesday at a parliamentary committee despite failure by the government so far to finalize an agreement with bailout creditors on details of the new regulations.

Greece's bailout creditors say the country has fallen behind on several key reforms that have been set as a condition for debt relief.

Sofia Municipality has plans to repair a building that has been in decay for years - a monument of culture, in the center of Sofia. It is possible for the municipality for the first time to take advantage of the legal opportunity to impose a mortgage on the property in order to finance repairs.

In the European Union (EU), 70% of the population lives in their own homes and 24.7% of households in the Union have mortgages at 45.3% of those without mortgages. This shows data from Eurostat and the Housing Finance Information Network.

Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras has called an emergency meeting with officials from Attica Bank to discuss a controversial loan that was issued by the Greek lender to Alternate Health Minister Pavlos Polakis.

Representative of Greece's four systemic banks - Alpha, Eurobank, Piraeus, and National Bank of Greece - are holding their second meeting in a week this evening with the government's economic team at the PM's office.

The focus of the meeting will be a new law establishing the framework for the protection of debtors' primary homes from foreclosure.

The distance between the government and banks on the changes to the so-called Katseli law means their meeting on Monday at the prime minister's office will be very important, while Athens is expected to forward its proposal on the protection of debtors' primary residences to the country's creditors on the same day.