So to invest in swiss residential real estate, buy a house as primary residence, then a year later move abroad rent it out, and the pension can remain pledged/withdrawn?
Officially at least, you’re not allowed to rent out if you withdraw 2nd pilar. You’d have to reimburse the pension fund first. Not sure at what level they would verify…
E.g. if your address changes, where all the paperwork will be sent (not everyone provides online banking, e.g. pension funds).
Or during general data updates (e.g. debt register extracts, suddenly no longer registered in the municipality?).
From personal experience, I can only say: play with open cards if you’re even considering a possible plan B.
Loan-to-value rules for owner-occupied property or early withdrawals from pension funds are a clear violation of most mortgage agreements once the place is no longer self-occupied.
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Hi all
I plan to purchase a Gewerbe/Buro. I have already an mortgage with my bank.
I wonder if it is possible to get a second mortgage with another bank or I need to go with the one I have currently my mortgage (one of the reason, is for a better interest rate).
Furthermore, I am considering to pay cash, but since the building is in construction, they would need to get a “promise of payment”, but not sure how it can work in my case, if I won’t request a mortgage.
- Can my bank (where I hold my money) can issue a letter with this promise of payment? I would then wonder how they can ensure I won’t withdraw the money…
- If pt.1 does not work, it means I need to pay now all the money (we are talking about 250KCHF, and the full building will be released on Q1/2027).
- Requesting a mortgage: I have tried to simulate it, but it didn’t work as the combinaiton (second property, building not yet completed) doesn’t give an option for quick online check.
Suggestions?
Thank you
I think if for the new mortgage the new building will be held as security it should be possible to get quotes from other banks.
If you intent to pay cash I believe your bank only will issue a „promise of payment“if you put the money ahead in some Sperrkonto/ Treuhandkonto.
Usually these letters are issued when money is paid by the bank (mortgage). The bank cant promise to pay something with money sitting in your account. The bank cant be sure that you still have the money in future. You will need to pay somebody who will handle the transaction.
If you transform your primary residence into a rental unit you have to payback into the second pillar. Eventually you’ll have to declare the new address to the insurance company / bank so they will find out ^^. That being said I’ve also never heard of anyone being sued for this. If you move abroad though this might work…
Currently applying for mortgage at different banks, Raiffeisen is asking 200 CHF to evaluate my mortgage application. Is this a thing now? even for Raiffeisen which has 0.75% entry fee on their pillar 3 investment product?
FYI: I am not a member of Raiffeisen
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Banks often do this, but the then “generouly” waive the fee if you sign with them..
But at the moment the risk appetite is not there, and to even get an offer you have to say motivate them…
more like 0.8%
Swissquote advertises 0.68% but for a 5-year contract if I understand correctly.
From what I was looking, anything below 0.65% is really good. 0.4/0.5 doesn’t really exist anymore (except for very special cases I guess). Not sure 0.4 ever happened outside of bank employees’ discount to be honest.
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Where i worked bank employees got 0.2 / 0.25 margin on saron. 0.65 margin is indeed really good in current market conditions however getting 0.5 always possible if you have good connections.
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I guess if they’re asking, they don’t have the right connections. 
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Depending on seniority level advisors have discretionary discounts they can give. Some banks I did some implementation work for had between 0.1 till 0.25 discounts on Saron tranches, 0.1 for the officer, 0.25 for the branch manager, higher discounts required head of credit / board approval. To get the best rates you need to speak to the ones highest in the food chain, there’s no secret.
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we recently got offered saron margin 0.93%, which i guess is pretty bad. I asked why it is so bad and get the reply that for the 2nd one, for investment, it cannot be that good. 0.93% should be considered alright. is that actually the case? thinking about different ways to try to bring down saron margin. suggestions would help.
By investment, do you mean this is a mortgage for a property intend to be rented? In which case you will always get a worse rate than for personal occupied property because there is more risk for the bank, plus they are probably more inclined to share the profits.
Which banks offer low rates on investment properties?
When I asked BVK and looked at VIAC both of them said they would only lend on owner-occupied properties.
UBS would lend, but didn’t give great rates. I wasn’t sure if there was a ‘go to’ bank for investment properties.
For a “small” amount of CHF 400k Raiffeisen offered this week 1.1% SARON margin 3 years, 1.0% SARON 5 years, 1.58% 5 years fixed rate and 1.83% 10 years.
It’s pretty bad but I am going to accept, probably SARON 3 years.
My situation is “complex” (old house, co-ownership with my father, which is retired) and I was rejected by different banks like VIAC and Postfinance.
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CHF swaps went up by like 0.3% from the end of February (guess why? 
). If you can wait 3-4 months, I would try to sit it over.
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Don’t you have to pay a forward if you lock in 18 months in advance?
Also is 0.65 saron margin very difficult to get now? im seeing 0.75 as the new norm?