In these times, all the solutions facilitating the first real estate acquisition deserve to be examined closely. The one that Crédit Mutuel Arkéa has just launched is called Duoprimo and offers to supplement the personal contribution of eligible first-time buyers within the limit of 40,000 euros and 10% of the total acquisition cost. This offer distributed within the branches of Crédit Mutuel de Bretagne and Crédit Mutuel du Sud Ouest will allow Crédit Mutuel Arkéa (via Arkéa Foncière Résidentielle) to co-invest alongside individuals making a first purchase of new property off-plan (off-plan sale). the future state of completion) or in the former, provided that it is without work and for housing whose DPE letter would be at least classified E (excluding thermal strainers). This joint ownership cannot exceed a duration of 10 years.
A formula that is very reminiscent of the one popularized for almost 5 years by the start-up Virgil, except that the latter can invest up to 20% and 100,000 euros and does not provide for a ban on energy performance. Not to mention the fact that Virgil targets an urban clientele living in the main French cities or their immediate periphery. At Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, it is explained that this 10% threshold was determined after studying numerous files where it emerged that:“a very large majority of funding requests currently refused due to a significant effort rate could be supported if the funding plan only included 90% of the overall amount”. A very minority share which must also underline, according to the bank, that this offer is there to “provide a solution to households excluded from the traditional financing model” and that its pricing is not intended to maximize financial profitability performance.
Conflict of interest
“The first property purchase is a pressing problem that everyone is trying to solve and in this sense, it is interesting that a large bank is interested in it”notes Saskia Fiszel, co-founder of Virgil. This does not prevent him from being a little more perfidious about his new competitor. “We know the Crédit Mutuel Arkéa teams with whom we have already worked and their offer is a bit like a degraded carbon copy of our own solution, with limits on amount and energy performance, she slips. “In addition, our clients appreciate having a co-investor who is not the lender. If the same entity is present on both tables, there can be a conflict of interest.”
For the moment, the Parisian start-up claims an average investment share slightly exceeding 10% (and therefore a significant share of projects where Virgil co-invests between 10 and 20%). For his part, Julien Carmona, president of Crédit Mutuel Arkéa and Crédit Mutuel de Bretagne, believes that this Duoprimo offer has a bright future. After successfully testing it in several agencies, she “is intended to be deployed very soon across our entire network”. He points out that while housing credit production fell by 41% in France in 2023, this decline was only 20% for the local banks of Crédit Mutuel de Bretagne and Crédit Mutuel du Sud-Ouest. A figure that he intends to further reduce with this new real estate solution.
