Mortgage interest rates to decrease with Turkish Central Bank's interest cut

Following the meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) on Wednesday, new Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) Governor Murat Çetinkaya is expected to approve an interest rate cut, which is anticipated to result in a decrease in mortgage and trade interest rates. While the lowest mortgage interest rate in the banking sector is 1.13 percent, following the interest rate cut by the CBRT, it is anticipated that the mortgage interest rates will drop below 1 percent during the summer months.

However, banking professionals indicated that an interest rate cut by the CBRT should be accompanied by hot money flows into the country since the credit deposit ratio stands at around 120 percent. Also, coupled with good global conditions, the decreasing trend in inflation, which is highly expected to continue over the next two months, create good conditions for emerging markets. Hence, banking professionals expect the mortgage interest rate to fall below 1 percent within a couple of months; whether these levels will be permanent, however, depend on the global conditions.

Mortgage interest rates have recently been fluctuating at around 1.25, which is high compared to previous years. According to exclusive news by Habertürk daily, the representatives of the real estate sector claim people postpone their decision to buy residential property due to high interest rates. Accordingly, people consider 1 percent as the "psychological limit," and the representatives indicated that when the mortgage interest rates decrease below 1 percent, residential property sales remarkably increase. Regarding the trend in consumer credit rates, the president's senior economic adviser, Yiğit Bulut, said he expects the consumer credit rates to decrease by a rate between 0.5 percent and 1 percent, adding that public banks should act more swiftly in terms of cutting rates. He also forecasted that liquidity will be more abundant in the country, adding that he expects an interest rate cut of either 50 base points or 75 base points.