OREANDA-NEWS. July 15, 2014. According to the results of SEB’s survey, the majority of people who took a home loan in the period following the financial crisis believe that in the next two years, the financial situation of their family is going to improve. People have grown more willing to save, as well as pay larger loan instalments.

Men are more optimistic about the improvement in the financial situation when compared to women. Out of the men who responded to the survey, 54% feel that the financial situation of their family is going to improve slightly or improve a lot in the coming years. As for women, 47% of the respondents believe that the financial situation is improving. The sense of security is greater in the case of the younger age groups.

As a rule, the loan affected the family’s financial situation in a negative manner. For most, the financial situation has remained the same when compared to the period before taking the loan. Actually, 29% of those respondents who had lived in a rented home before, affirm that their financial situation has improved after the decision to take the loan. Financial pressure is felt mostly by those who bought a home to start living on their own – for more than a fifth, the financial situation has either worsened or worsened significantly.

Triin Messimas, Development Manager of Private Loans at SEB: “The proportion of so-called bad loans is not high among the clients and usually they also manage to save some of their income. Just a third of the participants reported that they need to spend their entire income, and might even fall short. In a similar survey conducted in 2012, half of the loan clients were not able to save anything from their income. In general, saving opportunities were better for men – 48% the reported that their family can save at least 100 euros each month. The respective figure for women was only 35%.”

*The survey was conducted in the period between 3 March and 4 April. The sample consisted of clients who had taken a home loan from SEB between 2011 and the present. There were 1,343 respondents in the survey.