Mortgage loans: after the 2025 boom, access is again held back by increased demands from banks

The housing credit market in Buenos Aires has shown signs of slowing down again after a record-breaking year in 2025, with banks tightening their lending criteria in early 2026. According to the quarterly report from Metadato, compiled by the Urban Developers Chamber CEDU+AEV, the real estate sector is entering a cooling phase driven primarily by stricter conditions imposed by financial institutions. The data reflects this shift in trend, with the share of mortgages in total transactions in Buenos Aires dropping from 16.73% during 2025 to 12.60% in the first five months of 2026. The slowdown became more evident in May, when mortgage-related registrations fell by 54.85% compared to the previous year, while property sales declined by 3.12%. For the cumulative period from January to May, the volume of real estate operations recorded a smaller but still notable decrease of 1.17% against the same period in 2025. The survey attributes this decline to the increased stringency in the requirements set by financial entities for obtaining a mortgage loan. The cooling of the mortgage market does not stem from the cost of financing, but rather from the tightened access conditions. Between January and June 2026, the annual nominal rate for analyzed loans dropped from 13.90% to 9.50%, reducing the initial payment amount by 18.73% and improving the indicator measuring access conditions, which stood at 1.80 points in June. However, this improvement was insufficient to sustain the pace of operations. Financial institutions have raised their requirements for approving loan applications, a decision that not only reduced the number of new credits granted but also extended administrative processing times. As the process from submitting a file to signing a deed typically takes between 30 and 120 days, the greater scrutiny in credit evaluation has slowed the completion of deals and deepened the market's deceleration. Developers warn that this time lag means changes in credit policy will take some time to show up in statistics. Therefore, they expect the observed lower activity during the first half of the year could persist in the coming months, even though the financial cost continues to show a downward trend. The reduction in credit availability is already affecting the broader real estate market. From January to May 2026, the number of property sales in Buenos Aires decreased by 1.17% compared to the same period the previous year, indicating that the momentum characteristic of 2025 is beginning to wane. According to the Metadato report, the limited availability of loans also directly impacts the sale of used homes, a segment historically reliant on financing to drive turnover. This is evidenced by the stock absorption indicator stagnating at 1.2 years in June 2026, halting the strong decline in vacancy rates that had been supported by credit.