DistantNews
Support us
🇦🇷 Argentina /Economy & Trade

New mortgage loans could lower rates, monthly payments and income requirements

From La Nación · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources New plan
  • Economy Minister Luis Caputo announced that Argentina’s Sustainability Guarantee Fund will place 2 trillion pesos with banks to expand mortgage lending.
  • The program could generate 15,000 to 20,000 additional loans as the mortgage market weakens and banks face difficulties securing long-term funding.
  • Participating banks must offer mortgages at no more than UVA plus 7.5%, while the program’s scale and timing remain key uncertainties.

Argentina’s government is putting 2 trillion pesos, about $1.5 billion, into a plan intended to revive mortgage lending and make first-home purchases more accessible.

Economy Minister Luis Caputo announced that the Sustainability Guarantee Fund, known as the FGS, will place the money with banks through fixed-term deposit auctions. The fund will not issue mortgages directly. Banks must convert the financing into home loans.

The plan comes as the mortgage market loses momentum. Banks issued about 44,000 mortgages last year, but only 14,715 loans were completed in the first seven months of 2026, down 39% from the 24,271 issued during the same period a year earlier. At the current pace, the market could end the year with about 30,000 transactions.

It could finance housing solutions for between 17,000 and 18,000 families.

· Luis CaputoArgentina’s economy minister estimated the potential reach of the mortgage program.

The government program could add between 15,000 and 20,000 loans to that total. Caputo estimated that it could finance housing solutions for between 17,000 and 18,000 families, a volume equivalent to more than half the mortgages the market is projected to issue throughout 2026.

Auctions are due to begin next week. They will offer banks one-year deposits at a minimum rate of UVA plus 2.5% and five-year deposits at UVA plus 4.5%. Banks will compete by offering the rate they are willing to pay the FGS. Each auction will offer 200 billion pesos, with no bank allowed to receive more than 20%, or 40 billion pesos, in a single auction. The program could therefore involve 10 auctions, although the schedule has not been specified.

The main condition is that mortgages funded through the scheme cannot carry a rate above UVA plus 7.5%. Economist Federico González Rouco said the program’s effect would depend heavily on how quickly the funds are distributed. He said placing 17,000 loans within six months would be substantial, while achieving that number over two years would have far less impact.

If this brings in 17,000 loans in six months, that is a lot; if it takes two years, it is very little.

· Federico González RoucoThe housing economist highlighted the importance of the program’s rollout speed.
About this summary

Originally published by La Nación in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

More Stories

From Our Blog