Please note: the decision to purchase is not based on whether it makes financial sense or not - it most definitely does not 
. Its a personal choice but the request for feedback / advice is to ensure I don’t make stupid mistakes on top of a financially bad decision and worsen my situation further!
Hi all -
I am in the early stages of purchasing a new construction property and I have an upcoming notary appointment when the down payment is due. As the transfer of ownership is not until winter 2026 / spring 2027, its not straightforward to lock in a mortgage. I’ve met with a few banks and a couple of mortgage brokers but would like some sanity checks on what the sensible approach here would be.
My personal situation:
- Currently on my notice period with last date of employment as 30th September 2025. I currently do not have my next job lined up and plan to take a few months of break before beginning my job search.
- Notary appointment when the downpayment (20% minus the deposit previous paid) is due is in mid-September.
- Seller is not requiring a promissory note from a bank for this first notary appointment in mid-September. Its of course required at the time of ownership transfer. So in mid-September, I can make a cash payment and I’ve already liquidated the money I need for this purpose and its sitting in a bank account.
- With my current salary, I meet the eligibility criteria comfortably for this property. I expect my future salary to be less than 50% of my current salary, at which point I would not longer meet the eligibility criteria. I am hoping my other assets would help alleviate this concern – more on this below.
So far I’ve explored the following:
- A couple of banks have refused to begin the process for mortgage evaluation as the transfer of ownership date is longer than 12 months.
- Migros Bank has done an evaluation and is willing to sign a mortgage contract without the exact product decided. They will make the downpayment on my behalf and engage with the seller at the first notary appointment itself. They’ve verbally promised to give me a good discount on future rates, but are not willing to commit to any discount % in writing. If in the future I do not like their rates, there is a penalty of 2.75% of the purchase price – too expensive in my opinion.
- Spoke to a fixed fee (< 1000 CHF) based mortgage broker - their advice is to get a Lombard loan from IBKR (where my ETF assets are) to cover my downpayment and then engage with banks closer to the ownership transfer date.
- Spoke to a percentage commission based mortgage broker - their advices is also to get a Lombard loan from IBKR to cover the downpayment. But they are also proposing that I engage them for 0.7% fee on mortgage value to find an mortgage offer meeting a particular criteria (basically mortgage interest rate between 1% to 1.5%) before the mid-Sep notary appointment.
I’ve been upfront with all of them that my employment is ending and that I will have a drop in my future income.
When I refused the offer from Migros Bank, they said I can reach back out to them once the transfer of ownership date is known and that they would be willing to reengage then. When I raised the concern about eligibility with a lower salary, they mentioned that typically their analysis is based on an average of the past 3 years of salary. Even at the end of 2026, the average of (2023 + 2024 + 2025 salary) would meet the eligibility criteria. I am not sure whether I should be concerned about this supposed loophole or be glad it might work in my favor.
A friend I spoke to suggested that I approach Wealth Management divisions of banks like ZKB, UBS, Julius Baer instead of talking to traditional mortgage departments based on the value of my assets / investments, which total 2M CHF – higher than the purchase price. Supposedly these Wealth Management divisions tend to use assets as collateral (sometimes without needing to transfer from IBKR to their products) instead of based on my current or future salary. **Is this true? Anyone with experience here? **
My mental math on affordability of monthly interest & nebenkosten -
- If I do not find another job by the time of ownership transfer, I would consider a WEF withdrawal on my 2nd pillar to cover amortization/ 2nd mortgage. This significantly reduces my monthly costs (though I’d lose out on interest deductions in tax return). And yes, I have enough in the 2nd pillar to be able to cover the 2nd mortgage entirely and I’ve verified the relevant lockin periods.
- I would withdraw about 3% of my assets on an annual basis to sustain myself until I find another job - I don’t expect this to take me longer than 2-3 years even in the utter worst case scenario.
- I plan to rent out one of the rooms in the future apartment to help with the monthly payments - while I also live in the same apartment. I am yet to figure out how this would impact imputed rent calculations for tax purposes.
- Even with a salary that’s less than 50% of what I currently make, I would be able to make my monthly interest payments and nebenkosten. As it would be a new construction, I am not expecting major maintenance costs (i.e. greater than 10k in one shot) to happen in the first 5-6 years.
Thank you for reading thus far!
What I am looking for feedback / advice on:
- Does it make sense to approach Wealth management divisions with 2M CHF in assets? Is that considered high net worth for Swiss banks?
- Is it better to wait until the ownership transfer date is announced before looking for a mortgage?
- Anything I have particularly overlooked?
Thanks in advance!