Unlike other banks in Estonia, Swedbank will no longer count family benefits, including child benefits, as income when evaluating home loan applications.
Starting last month, Swedbank counts wages — not benefits — as the applicant’s primary income when approving home loans, mortgage area manager Anne Pärgma confirmed according to daily Õhtuleht (link in Estonian).
Other banks in Estonia, including SEB, Coop Pank, LHV, Luminor, Citadele and Bigbank, continue to count family benefits in applicants’ income.
LHV private financing chief Catlin Vatsel noted that the number of children still affects a family’s borrowing capacity, since more dependents mean higher monthly expenses and a smaller portion of income available to service loans.
Karin Ossipova, head of mortgage lending at Coop Pank, added that families with at least three children can utilize the housing loan guarantee for large families offered by the Estonian Business and Innovation Agency (EIS), which reduces the usual required down payment required for home loans to 5 percent.
Read more: ERR.EE
One Response
jzwi3m