Russians are being denied mortgages en masse.

      It has become significantly harder to get a mortgage in Russia, reports the publication Lenta.ru. According to the National Bureau of Credit Histories, the share of rejections has for the first time exceeded 60%. That means only 39% of housing loan applications are now approved. For comparison, at the beginning of 2025 this figure was 10 percentage points higher.

      The main reason has been the tightening of requirements by banks. Since July 1 the Central Bank has limited the share of borrowers with a high debt burden in order to reduce market risks. Now banks tend to refuse customers whose loan payments consume more than half of their income.

      As a result, the share of mortgages where the debt burden exceeds 80% fell from 47% last year to 6% this year.

      At the same time, even a reduction of the key rate to 16.5% did not help bring creditworthy customers back to the market. According to the agency Expert RA, Russians have shown increased interest in market-rate mortgages — the volume of such loans rose by 18%. However, because of high rates, monthly payments still remain unaffordable for the majority of borrowers.