‘My Home 3’ will have a budget of €2bn and aims to help around 20,000 young people, couples and households buy their first home. Details of the application process and the supporting documents required are expected to be finalised before the scheme launches.
One of the most significant changes concerns the age limit, which is being raised to 55 from 50 under ‘My Home 2’.
At the same time, the limits on property purchases and financing are being raised:
Property value: up to €300,000, from €250,000.
Maximum loan amount: up to €230,000, from €190,000.
Financing: up to 90% of the property’s value, with the remaining 10% to be covered by the beneficiary’s own funds.
The new income limits
Income criteria will also be raised, with the aim of widening the pool of households eligible to join the scheme.
For single applicants, the maximum income limit will rise to €25,000, from €20,000 under ‘My Home 2’.
For married couples, the limit will be €35,000, with an additional €7,000 for each child, compared with €28,000 and an additional €4,000 per child under the previous scheme.
For single-parent families, the maximum income will be €39,000, with an additional €7,000 for each child, up from €31,000 with an additional €5,000, as previously.
The additional allowance for family income will therefore rise to €7,000 per child. In addition, families with more than four children will be allowed a larger property, with the permitted floor area increasing by 10 sq m for each child beyond the fourth.
These changes widen access to the scheme, particularly for families with children who need a larger home.
Almost 22,000 beneficiaries in total have benefited from the two previous schemes, ‘My Home 1’ and ‘My Home 2’, with 7,814 and 14,114 contracts signed respectively.
‘A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’: Beneficiaries’ experiences
Dimitris Stavrianakis, 28, worked while studying to cover his personal expenses. He has been in the workforce for around five years, in the field he wanted to work in. Until recently, he told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (APE-MPE), he could not even imagine owning his own home.
His limited savings, the high cost of bank borrowing and property prices had made buying a home prohibitive. After an acquaintance told him about ‘My Home 2’, he decided to explore what the scheme could offer.
For him, the scheme proved to be an opportunity of a lifetime, enabling him to buy a home in the area where he wanted to live, close to where he grew up and with the features he considered essential for a decent standard of living.
He says the monthly payment is manageable and considerably lower than that on a conventional mortgage. By way of comparison, he estimates that if his home were rented out, the rent could be up to €200 higher than the payment he makes.
“Before the scheme, I knew I couldn’t buy a home,” he says, adding that he now has a secure base he can draw on if his circumstances and needs change in the future.
The example of a family with two children
Christos and Elina decided to look for a new home after the birth of their second child, as their family needed more space.
In the publication by the Ministry of Social Cohesion and Family ‘Stories that changed lives – 26 programmes – one ministry – every family’, presented at the 90th Thessaloniki International Fair, they describe their experience of taking part in the scheme.
The couple learned about the scheme online and managed to buy their own home, something they say would not have been possible at this point without its support.
The new home is larger and more comfortable, and is in a better area, meeting the needs of the parents and their children. The monthly loan payment is also significantly lower than that on a conventional mortgage.
“That helped us enormously, because the money we would have spent can go elsewhere — towards our family’s needs, our children’s needs,” they say.
APE-MPE