Russian state-owned Agency for Housing Mortgage Lending (AHML) increased its forecast for 2010 housing mortgage lending by 12-14%, the agency said in a statement on Tuesday.
"Preliminary results of the first half of 2010, which show that the Russian mortgage market recovery trends are strengthening, prompted an increase in the forecast," AHML said.
AHML raised its prognosis to 320-360 billion rubles ($10.5 bln-$11.8 bln) from its previous forecast of 280-320 billion rubles.
It said that 84,900 mortgage loans worth 105.3 billion rubles had been granted in the first five months of 2010.
"Thus the volume of crediting increased by 137% (in the first five months of 2010) in comparison with the same period in 2009. In May, it increased by 190% [in comparison to May 2009]," the statement said.
The central bank said that arrears rose by 1.1% to 1.025 trillion rubles as of June 1 from 1.014 trillion rubles as of May 1. Arrears volume increased by 1.4% to 1.011 trillion rubles from the start of the year.
"From the fourth quarter of 2009, the situation favored the purchase of housing... The mortgage loan rate started plummeting, and housing prices reached a historical low in the last two years," the AHML statement said.
Russian brokerage company Kreditmart said that an average market rate of mortgage loans in ruble terms decreased by 0.19 percentage points to 16.52% in June 2010 from May levels, while in dollar terms it decreased by 0.23 percentage points to 13.45%. The rate fell 3.4 percentage points between May 2009 and May 2010.
MOSCOW, July 20 (RIA Novosti)
