Stanislav Gilecki
Stanisław Gilecki, Deputy Director of the Institute for European Policies and Reforms (IPRE), believes that this suspension is not a problem of budgetary liquidity, but a symptom of a deeper issue. The program, launched in 2018 to expand access to mortgage lending for young people, has grown beyond what the authorities can currently manage.
The program has run its course in its current form
Following the Ministry of Finance’s announcement that a decision on the program’s future would be made in the coming weeks, Gilecki prepared an analytical note examining the possibilities for continuing the project.
“The analysis shows that the Prima Casă program has been one of the most successful public policy measures in recent years. It has contributed to the maturation of the mortgage market and opened up access to real estate for thousands of families. At the same time, the program’s success creates a need to reform it to ensure the most effective use of public funds. The market has changed; commercial banks are competing relatively well in the mortgage segment, and continuing the program in its current form risks turning a social policy tool into a subsidy for aggregate demand, which will continue to put pressure on the budget,” the author asserts.
Eight years after the program’s launch, more than 8,000 homes have been purchased under state guarantees, and approximately 6,400 beneficiaries are currently receiving monthly payments.
In the second quarter of 2025 alone, contracts under the Prima Casă Plus program accounted for more than half of all new mortgage agreements issued by banks, indicating that the program is no longer aimed exclusively at the segment lacks access to commercial credit.
We need to think about the future
The author highlights three main issues requiring intervention in the coming period.
The most underestimated problem is the budgetary burden for the next 20–30 years. Each compensation contract represents a budgetary obligation for the entire term of the loan. Approximately 6,400 compensation recipients incur annual costs of about 150 million lei, which will remain a burden on the budget for another two and a half decades, regardless of economic development or the government’s future priorities.
The suspension of payments in April 2026 is precisely a symptom of this problem. The flow of existing obligations, combined with new requests, exceeds the annual allocation limit.
Pressure on demand is reflected in prices. In a market where the supply of new housing remains geographically concentrated and relatively inelastic, stimulating demand contributes to price increases.
The residential real estate price index calculated by the National Bank of Moldova reached 226.7% in the fourth quarter of 2025, an increase of 26.8% compared to the previous year.
The program is not the sole cause of the monstrous price growth, according to Giletski, but it contributed to the redistribution of pressure on the sales market.
The target group expanded steadily with each new iteration of government policy. The program began accepting applicants based on age and professional status, but without income restrictions, and each subsequent amendment broadened the circle of beneficiaries.
With the Prima Casă Plus program, it was opened up to professionals—such as lawyers, notaries, bailiffs, and raised the housing price ceiling to 2.5 million lei, which exceeds the cost of “social” housing and reaches the upper-middle segment of the market.
Thus, the state ultimately subsidizes demand that would have materialized in any case.
How to reform the program?
Based on the analysis conducted, the IPRE expert offers the following recommendations:
– Narrowing the program to priority population groups. The reformed program should target several categories for which state intervention is clearly justified from a public policy perspective.
For example, young families with three or more children (in the context of demographic support) and public servants in sectors with chronic staff shortages, such as education and healthcare (in the context of retaining personnel).
If a category can obtain a commercial loan on reasonable terms, the state no longer has grounds to subsidize its demand.
– Income limits instead of price limits. Introducing an income limit calculated as a multiple of the average wage in the economy, with automatic annual adjustments based on data from the National Bureau of Statistics.
With a functional income cap, limiting the cost of the relevant housing becomes unnecessary, and the level of debt will naturally determine what people can afford. An automatic mechanism will prevent repeated legislative changes and protect the program from becoming obsolete;
– Elimination of the monthly compensation mechanism. Replacement of the monthly loan compensation with a one-time grant for the down payment, provided at the time of purchase.
This change directly addresses the issue of budget commitments spanning 20–30 years. A one-time subsidy is a visible expense that is easy to plan for; it does not create long-term inertia and lowers the barrier to receiving assistance without creating a permanent dependence on the budget;
– A return to a reasonable debt-to-income ratio. The 2024 change , which raised the maximum debt-to-income ratio from 50% to 70% of net income, was a mistake. At 70%, a family becomes vulnerable to even the slightest shocks, such as job loss, unexpected medical expenses, or an interest rate hike.
Returning to the 50% threshold restores a safety margin for aid recipients and for the banking system, according to Stanisław Gilecki.
