"More than 300 banks in comparison" or "we compare more than 300 banks for you" what is really true about these statements on the subject of construction interest rates?
If you are already thinking about buying your own home, you will not be able to avoid construction financing. It is in the nature of things that we would all like to benefit from current favorable construction interest rates. But what happens when interested prospective homeowners want to gather information about financing?
An almost insurmountable jungle of information, offers, banks, credit brokers and online comparison portals pelting down on you. It has become very difficult to filter out the information which is also useful for your own construction financing. A real interest rate battle is taking place on the internet. Everyone is trying to outdo their competitors with allegedly more favorable construction interest rates. And it is mostly only about the interest for the building loan, which is not the decisive criterion for the financing. The fact that most of the interest rate offers made previously are not at all tenable in the end does not seem to bother many intermediaries and banks significantly.
A phenomenon that is becoming more and more common lately: providers of construction loans are currently advertising more and more with the number of banks supposedly compared. There seems to be no stopping here either. Current construction interest rates from over "300 banks" are compared. This is how you can read it everywhere. I would not be surprised if soon there will be talk about the 400 and 500 bank comparison. It seems that the number of banks is now a quality characteristic of professional construction financing advice.
With this article I would like to investigate to what extent a "300 bank comparison" is really realistic in practice and how the whole thing works behind the scenes.
I am writing here from my own experience, as I naturally also use various platforms for an initial comparison for my customers and have a corresponding insight.
When people talk about a comparison of such a large number of construction interest rates, they usually mean a comparison via various platforms where a wide variety of banks, building societies and credit institutions are connected and deposit their current construction interest rates. These may well be 300 banks in number, but that doesn't mean they can be compared, as most lending institutions fall through the cracks when the corner data of the financing is entered into such comparison platforms:
Here all parameters of the borrower, the object and the project are deposited in the system.
Parameter borrower:
- Age
- Residence
- Occupation/industry/how long employed
- Income situation
- Information on assets and liabilities
Parameter object:
- Type of object
- Location of the property
- Year built/upgrades made
- Living space
Parameters:
- Purchase price of the property
- Equity
- Required loan
- Desired rate
- Fixed interest rate
- Type of loan
- Possibilities of government subsidies
Fact number 1
Since each bank has its own guidelines and conditions under which it is willing to grant a loan, most of the 300 banks have already fallen through the cracks at this stage. Z.B. Are there a whole lot of lending institutions that do not accompany real estate full financing, for others the age of the borrower is too high or they do not finance self-employed people. So now a handful of banks remain, which can now be looked at more closely and compared.
Fact number 2
Since most of the so-called "300 banks" are only regionally active, they don't make the cut for a comparison either. Only the large, supra-regional banks and regional banks based in their own areas are in the majority.
For example, in most cases it is not interesting for a borrower from munich to choose a bank that has its business area on the baltic sea, unless the property to be purchased is in that location.
Fact number 3
When it comes to favorable interest rates, I can say from experience that it is usually the same banks that play in the first league. There are banks which are regularly not among the favorable providers. From my experience there are 5 -10 recurring banks where top conditions are possible. Last but not least, through negotiations.