Hi all

I am interested in buying an apartment in Italy, Alto Adige/Suedtirol region. I need to find a bank that offers mortgages for non-residents.

So far I have identified local Raiffeisen branch who offer this quite easily, but their rates are very unimpressive. They seem however to have a very relaxed vetting approach in that they pretty much immediately offer 60% as a loan without looking too much at you unless the place looks reasonably priced.

Heard Intesa finance non-residents. Rates good, 20 years at 0.6/0.7% but lengthy process and bureacratic. Any experience?

Any other ideas?

Thank you

Im no expert in this but Italian banks can and do offer mortgages to non Italian residents, though also keep in mind taxes on the purchase are much higher if you're non resident in Italy. I'd also be researching which Italian banks would potentially lend to you

Well, yeah, that kind of was the question

Ok I was under the impression you were only looking at Swiss banks, sorry! I'm sure there will be lots of Italian banks looking to offer mortgages, perhaps others could give some good suggestions....

Yes, I mean Italian banks that offer mortgages to non-residents. Swiss banks won't finance real estate abroad.

That's not true - I recently purchased my second UK-property with a Swiss mortgage. It really depends on the bank - some are more flexible.

You got a mortgage on a UK property through retail banking in CH?

In what currency?

GBP - with Swiss interest rates.

I have three accounts (in USD, CHF and GBP respectively). Trying to move all my mortgages here, as the rates in the UK (especially with the current dip in rentals in London) is making the buy-to-let properties not very efficient.

Clearly the prices are way too high in the UK v cost of borrowing & rents.
I looked at BTL mortgages & rates quoted were around 5% for a 5 year fix, which implies prices need to halve, quite likely as London costs 12 times earnings of the purchaser or more, this dropped to 2.5 times the earnings of the purchaser in the 90's slump. Both multiples are somewhat extremes.

I thought that was not possible in retail banking. Are you sure it's not a private banking offering?

What's the bank?

Habib - private banking.

Do you need to be an existing customer? If so, is it expensive to become one?

No clue... I've been a customer for years...

OK that explains it.

Private banking is a whole different animal, these kinds of products are not available to everyone.

Thanks for confirming

Looking at their fee model and product offering, Habib are targeting clients with CHF 250k of investable assets upwards, but aren‘t really going for big fish, as their fee schedules top out at over CHF 5m. If you have less than CHF 1m on account with them they charge CHF 100 per quarter for account fees (I suspect that means CHF 1m invested, as they‘d be nuts to incentivise holding CHF with the negative rates).