Which bank will help you better in buying a house?

Accomodation, House and Garden
1
Dear all,

My wife and I are considering finding a new bank with the perspective of maybe buying a house in the future.

May I ask which bank is the best for people wanting to buy house? Do banks help you as well in finding a suitable flat to buy? Do banks differ in how much useful consulation they offer?

And, is it possible to buy property with two B-permits, assuming steady jobs?

2
We found the cantonal bank to be quite good.

Tom

3
Agreed, ZKB was the best offer and very helpful.

4

You can buy a property with only one B permit. So long as it’s your main residence, it’s fine.

5
You'll tend to find the small regional banks (cantonal, Raiffeisen) more helpful with personalized offers. At the big banks (UBS, CS) the impression I got was that they punched their numbers into the computer, hit print and that was it. Indeed I asked myself why they even needed a human to do that.

6
You don't need a long-standing relationship with a bank to get a good mortgage.

Online services seem to have the best rates and they

couldn't care less which bank you use as long as you meet the requirements (my current rate with homegate is 0.92% on a 7-year term).

The only potential advantage of a local bank would be to provide the valuation once you find something you want to buy.

7
When we were looking for a mortgage for our house CS told us they'd at least match any other offer we received and in fact shaved a bit more off that.

Hubby telling them we were going to move all our accounts to the cantonal bank may or may not have played a part in that.

8
UBS gave me the best deal last time I renewed my mortgages. It was better than their published figures.

9
hi, I'd suggest to have a meeting with Moneypark or the Vermögenszentrum to get a different view than only the Bank view on mortgages. In my discussions with Banks, I found them very much focused on the rate and the duration of the mortgage, while in fact there is much more to it!

VZ also offer their own mortgages, Moneypark is a pure mortgage broker (has grown a lot over the past years), offering mortgages of about 70 providers.

I liked the fact Moneypark have real offices, where you can have an in-person meeting to discuss, ask questions, and get a feel for how close they are on top of developments and everything mortgage-related. Moneypark found for me 'the best deal'. Pure online providers (homegate, hypomat.ch, swissquote) offer a phone/helpline at best.

The deal I secured through Moneypark, was with a solid, real bank (not something 'obscure') with conditions (the rate) very-very nearly as good as the online providers.

[ And no, I have no interest in recommending either Moneypark nor VZ, just sharing my personal experience. ]

10
We used Kantonal Bank. Oddly the Migros Bank came back with the lowest interest rate. Credit Suisse were very good service but Kantonal Bank gave us the best all-round service and offer.

Don't be shy about playing them against each other to get the best deal available.

11
Your Cantonal bank.

Raiffeisein did not show interest; I had an email confirmation from Migros Bank based on my firm offer to the agent - and - Migros Bank refused to go along AFTER i had put down the advance!!

Finally negotiated and got the loan from the cantonal bank.

12
I also recommend at least considering cantonal bank and negotiating.

Initially they (ZKB) gave us already an okish offer, and after we showed a quote (which was even non-binding) from another bank, they've matched it and we went with them.

13
Banks are just supermarkets selling money rather than meat, negotiate as much as you can !

14
I always dealt with Raiffeisen for buying property and I would highly recommend it.

15
Just bought a house and we are in a similar situation - 2 B permits. We had a good experience with both ZKB and Credit Suisse, with both banks offering good service and willing to negotiate. In the end we went with Credit Suisse since they offered better interest rates for the longer terms (whereas ZKB was offering better interest rates for the shorter terms).

By the way, Credit Suisse also offers contracts in English, whereas ZKB only has German contracts.

16
I also had good experiences with Credit Suisse so far, but I didn't buy a house yet. I've heard good things about Zürcher Kantonalbank and cantonal banks in general. They seem to be more helpful than the "bigger" banks.

17
No positive experience with the big banks. We went to CS and UBS after we got a good offer from ZKB, just to see what they would say and negotiate down the rates even more.

CS just took our documents, rather unwillingly as we weren't a customer with them, and promised to contact us back in a few days. Which they did, and offered us pretty bad rates overall, 0.2% higher than ZKB's offer which we gave them too! No negotiating was possible.

UBS was better, they immediately had an advisor guy who looked through our documents, gave a quick quote, but after seeing ZKB's offer concluded that the best he could do is to only match it after talking to his boss...

18
Sometimes banks don't want to take on more mortgages for a variety of reasons and so rather than say no outright they tend to give an offer that they know is high to kill the deal this way, and if you happen to say yes, well so be it !

19
Go to all compare and choose the best deal for you.

20
No and yes,

Banks won't help you much in finding a place to buy, but based on your account manager, the services they provide may differ.

I used to send the property description and ask for a valuation to check if the price were as expected. Each back has their own valuation method.

After you find a property it is always good to write an email asking for a quote from a few banks.

I found the best deal on ZKB