I am looking into buying a flat in Bern. I went to the bank and got a pre-approval on the budget. Found a property I really like and requested a “property survey” (i would call it an “audit”: checking if there are any structural issues with the flat or the building) from a third party company, charging me 1.5k/2k.
I struggled a bit to find one as it does not seem normal here to request this kind of service. What do people do here? Buying blindly? I was living in the UK before, and there it seems to be a standard process before buying a property.
I understand that in Switzerland the construction requirements are quite strict and there is less chance to find a huge problem after the purchase, but I am just curious based on your experience.
Thanks
My experience is exactly as yours, I got stuck in the same point. Since then I’m really more bias towards buying a new built than a second hand, or if second hand then buying something not too old, that is 10 or 20 y old max.
I would suggest getting the protocol from the owners meeting for last few years and contact an architect for inspection who might give you an opinion about the property and upcoming maintenance needs.
The market here is MUCH more aggressive than in the UK.
When I was buying, a property of interest got listed on a Monday for around 1mio. I messaged them immediately, and went to see it on Wednesday. It was a fixer-upper, with multiple issues… but overall not bad.
I spoke to the agent on the Wednesday while on site, saying “I probably want to make an offer, but need to come back with someone who can tell me that the woodworm in the loft isn’t an issue”…
The response? That’s ok - but you need to hurry as we already have multiple offers - and if you don’t plan on offering at least 20% more than asking price - don’t bother.
I called back Thursday to set an appointment to go back, and was told it had been sold.
For properties that are “good value” - you’ll find they don’t stay on the market long.
How long ago was that? I wonder if the market has cooled since.
I had a similar experience. Viewed property on the day it was advertised and made offer immediately, backed by all bank guarantees etc. which we had already lined up in advance.
Radio-silence for a few days until we were informed it is no longer available (someone made a large overbid).
It’s worth noting that a property survey done here is a very different kettle of fish from those that are generally done before purchase in the UK. A standard UK one is worth very little, TBH, but is generally required by the mortgage lender just to confirm that the property is what it says it is and doesn’t appear to be in imminent danger of falling down. It’s quite common for structural faults to go unnoticed, mainly because they’re not done by properly qualified structural surveyors. Those are also available, of course, but are probably much more in line with the Swiss prices.
The Swiss one, we did it once on a very ‘special’ property we were considering in Graubunden, turned out it was overpriced by about 30% compared to their real market evaluation. Described it as a “liebhaberobject” i.e. it might be worth that much to the right buyer but a bank would only lend on what the actual survey valued it at. Was very thorough though, as I said much more so than a UK one.
But no, it’s not considered a standard part of the buying process.
How did you arrange that? I recently moved but I’m not happy with the new house (I love the village though) so I decided to turn back to the idea of owning. Perhaps I’m more determined now as looking for a better place to rent seems equally time draining as looking for something to buy.
Should I talk to my bank (or any bank) to give me something like a written guarantee how much I can borrow up-front?
speak to a bank, get an idea of how much you can borrow based on your deposit
look at properties, freak out a bit
talk to bank again, get a guarantee (basically a letter stating that they will back you to xx mio CHF for your mortgage for the right property based on your deposit and income)
look at properties, show them the fancy letter and make an offer
sometimes you need to transfer a deposit if accepted verbally
next goto a notary, they will draft the paperwork (in DE/FR/IT - if you don’t speak a local language you will need to give POA to someone who does to sign for you)
Not sure why you need the bank guarantee thing, TBH. You should be easily able to work out how much you can borrow from sites like Houzy Affordability Calculator
As for the language, last one we sold in German, which neither seller or buyer (Swedish) could really speak fluently, but the notary was able to tell us what it all meant in English, and it was a very simple (no agent used) sale. There is no actual requirement to have a local language speaker, where via POA or just a translator.
We did all for our current Swiss property in French, with no need for any English explanations, but honestly, regardless of the language used you’re reliant on the notary to inform you of what you’re actually signing up for anyway.
Thanks for outlining the process. About the above quote, this is also unclear to me. Some ads explicitly mention the bidding/vetting process. I’ve recently seen an apartment which was just advertised with a price and conditions to reserve it. Yet when I talked to the agent he asked me to make an offer, telling me that the max offer currently is X (++Y from initial price). I hope this was just one off ad trick, or should I expect that all second-market properties are being sold by bidding? For this one I instantly walked away as the X price was just -120k to a new apartment currently being built in a neighborhood (think about all the resale value addons: minergie certificate, photovoltaic, etc, etc). The main problem with bidding I can see is the time. Let’s assume I can see 10 properties on the market I’m interested in buying, for sure I can’t make an offer for all of them at once. I guess making an offer expiring in ~2 weeks also doesn’t make sense seeing for how long properties are advertised here.
be careful with new apartments. i see some where they try to have a ‘reasonable’ headline price but hidden in the details is the fact that they will charge 1000 per month ground rent!
Some places are advertised below market value, just to start a bidding war.
Some places are advertised at market value, and there just that person who thinks it’s perfect - so will bid above value. Or someone will bid below.
Some are advertised above value, and they expect offers below.
It really depends - the process can be frustrating.
In my case, I got something at under asking price, but mainly because the owners liked us. We were shown an offer 50k more than ours (on a 1mio property), and asked if we would match it. I said we couldn’t, that we were planning on starting a family here… the other bidder wanted to turn the property into apartments.
huh, I’d say this is out of my reach??? I mean really, what can I do if I approach an agency hiding the contact to the seller? That’s 99.999% of the transactions.
I know about this and I’m not interested in buying a property in building law (Baurecht), whether new or second-market.