Hi Mark:

My apartment stood empty for nine months, with continuous promise of rentals from Rednet and I-pa. (I seemed to be getting a healthy flow of viewers but no takers). I changed to Leach&Lang who immediately informed me that pidgeons had taken roost and the balcony was a complete mess. They have been ultra efficient and professiona, arranged cleaning, furnishing at a very reasonable price and I had a one-year rental contract within 3 weeks of switching.

Rednet were also responsible for not following the correct procedures at handover thus resulting in a very substantial penalty for late payment. I would find it extremely difficult to recommend their services.

Halo

I do not recommend Rednet as well!!

I sent them two enquirers for my mortgage with no reply so applied to Foreign Finance and Noble Bank. The best offer I got from Daniel Podpora from Foreign Finance. The interest rate is 4,75% in CHF and LTV is 80%.

Do you think it is a good offer?

Mark

Mark,

Just out of interest, the rate that you achieved, is that for a remortgage or a new mortgage?

Thanks

STC

STC,

It is a new mortgage. It is a good offer?

regards
Mark

CHF mortgages seem to have had a huge margin applied.

I'm on a tracker at 1.6% currently with Millenium.

I guess it is luck which provider you got. I can't seem to make sense of these issues over rising CHF mortgages.

Tom

when you signed your mortgage?
As far as I know Millennium do not give any finance in currency any more. LTV is also very low 60% in pln. I do not find attractive to pay 6% in PLN in millennium or 9-11% in metro or dombank and in addition 4% bank fee.


Mark

Mark,

My CHF mortgage was agreed around 2 years ago. Yes I believe they only do PLN mortgages now.

I think the best strategy now for a new mortgage is to go for a CHF mortgage. Can the PLN drop any further than it is now? I hope not! and if this is the case then a CHF mortgage should hopefully become a lot small once the PLN rises (one day I live in hope!).

What I still can't understand is how the rest of the posters here have been screwed twice. Once on the fall of the PLN against the CHF and secondly they say that their monthly repayments in PLN terms are much higher??

The Swiss bank rate has come down so far that anyone on a traker should be paying significantly less. My repayments have halved, although I have been screwed with an outstanding mortgage sum much higher than I started with.

Tom

The reason people have been screwed twice as you say, is because of the typical margin that Noble bank charged. On your mortgage at 1.6% the interest amount has come down so much that converting it (CHF to PLN) at a rate of around 3 (instead of just over 2) still gives a figure much less than a year ago BUT if you have a margin of around 2.5/3.0% (plus 1% until mortgage registered) then although the rate has dropped as a proportion it is not such a big drop.

very rough example, presume CHF Libor has fallen from 3% to 0.5% & CHF exchange rate has moved from 2 to 3 so 150%.

if your margin is 1% then your payable rate came down from 4% to 1.5%, so 1.5% x 150% = 2.25% almost half what you used to pay.

typical Noble bank margin 3% +1% so rate has come down from 7% to 4.5%, so 4.5% x 150% = 6.75% almost the same as it was before.

It is not that the payments have gone up just that they haven't really changed dispite the huge drop in the CHF interest rate. That is why I like the 'mini %' offer from Noble (but only if you negotiate the right conditions to offset the cost).

Mark - regarding a new loan now, as Tom points out there is a big chance your loan will become significantly smaller as the exchange rates move closer to the previous levels, this will far outway the relatively high margins that are currently being charged by Polish banks. I would say it is a good deal...

Antony

My take on it would be that Tom's CHF mortgage repayment with Millenium is serviced by a CHF current account , whereas Antony's Noble bank CHF mortgage repayment is serviced by a PLN current account . Therefore , Tom takes advantage of lower interest rate even though the currency has moved against him , whilst Antony carries all the currency risk & therefore does not benefit from the lower interest rate .
Maybe I'm wrong , but if I was in your position I would read the fine print of Noble's latest offer very carefully before signing up to it.

By the way Antony, Court registration process in Warsaw is now down to about 4 months ( I got a register book last week for a property that I applied to the Court for in late Feb.)

Antony

Can you explain what you mean exactly regarding negotiating the right conditions on this product.

Thanks

Mark