Saw this a bit late – is it possible in CH to remortgage after having paid down? It is possible to remortgage for reconstruction, upgrades etc.
But, you could reborrow against original value? or value at the moment f the new mortgage?
You can borrow for renovations that maintain or increase the value of your house that’s not a problem. They will do another valuation for that but in general you have to wait for 2 years after you bought a realty to get an updated (higher) valuation. However If the value decreases they will take the lower value.
Not a specialist, but what I read is following.
When you take a mortgage, bank/financial administration create a “mortgage record” that states how much you can borrow against your property. Normally this value is just equal to your mortgage. If you repay it, partially or full, it is recommended to keep this “credit line”.
If later you want to borrow against your property again, it is relatively easy to increase your mortgage up to the already existing limit. If you want to increase your “mortgage limit”, it is a different level of administrative complexity and requires for example revaluation of the property and creation of a new record.
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This is commonly called a line of credit. It seems it is not the norm in Switzerland in the B2C business (could not find anything about it).
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I also have no experience with this. Just know that the Tesla youtuber that I’m following has a few flats around Sydney and he recently had them re-evaluated (to the upside) and then he maxxed out his LTV on all of them to 80% and used the money to buy TSLA stock. So this kind of thing works at least in some jurisdictions.
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A friend borrowed CHF 80k on his flat and the raiffeisen told him he was free to do anything with.
There is some retirement strategy, for example : Comment améliorer votre retraite grâce à votre logement en propriété | VZ Vermögenszentrum
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I can confirm this statement partially. When we got our house and mortgage we went to the maximum mortgage that we could afford with my salary (the mortgage is „only“ 65% of the property price). However, some years later after switching jobs and getting a good raise, we wanted to get a cooling unit within our existing heath pump system and asked for additional 50k which the bank (in our case swisscanto) provided without any evidence of doing something with it. In the end our current system was not allowing us to add the cooling system and we ended up with some additional ETF‘s with that money.
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Up to 66.6% LTV you can do whatever you want with the additional money. So if your property value is 1.2 million and your current mortgage is 500k, you could increase it to 800k and buy a Ferrari for 300k. Or invest 300k in stock ETFs. Also the same with properties without a mortgage. You can go to any bank, let them make a valuation of it and then you can make a new mortgage up to 66.6% and use the whole amount however you desire.
As soon as you surpass the 66.6% LTV, there are more restrictions. Usually only possible for RE-related things. So renovations or generating capital for buying something additional. Also repaying a 2nd pillar withdrawal that you made for RE in the past.
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Migros asks 1.5% for their “hypolimite”
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Interesting, same rates as Interactive Brokers. If these are real rates.
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IB has 3.83% p.a.
EDIT: it’s for USD. CHF is at 1.50% p.a., yes.
I am examining the prevailing mortgage interest rates. According to Money Park, SARON appears to be the more expensive option at the moment. I had always assumed that SARON would be the cheapest option. Could someone clarify why currently the fixed-term rates are lower? @Cortana ?
Depends on the interest rate curve; this can obviously change based on the market.
Swap rates are pricing in a decreasing Saron rate, therefore, fixed mortgages are lower (for the moment).
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Personally I think it’s rather meaningless to compare rates for different durations. Instead, you can try to compare them with “free market” interbank rates to determine the markup in each case.
Here I have started to sum up the sources for the latter:
P.S. another reference I use is the best interest rate of savings account (duration equivalent of SARON) and of medium term notes (usually Cembra), which are duration equivalents of fixed term mortgages. These are the best rates that you can earn as an individual investor.
P.P.S. My first impression from these data after I made a quick comparison once, is that for durations longer than 5-6 years, the markup really goes up.
I feel that people were really missing the woods for the trees in this thread. 0.86% is a great rate and you have it locked in for 10 years? Why were people not just grabbing this with both hands?
Sure, if rates stayed low for 10 years then you’d pay 2.6k more each year on $1 million. But at current rates, you’re now paying 14.9 more per year wiping out 5.7 years of the theoretical savings each year it continues and probably a lot more stressful to boot.
We had historically low interest rates and the cost of insuring against rate rises was low. Just take the gift that’s being handed out to you!
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Thank you @xerox5003 @Dr.PI - Does it mean the marked (banks, institutions, etc) anticipate a decrease in SARON rates? I’m considering purchasing a property and am currently unsure about the best option. I had the free consultation with Money Park, during which they suggested that I might opt for a 2-year SARON plan and reassess later. By combining my personal funds and pledging my 2 and 3 pillar, I will be able to meet the 33% requirement, thus eliminating the need for amortization
I suppose recency bias and the fact that they got greedy and perhaps felt it could keep falling. Absolutely crazy low rate!
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It is hard to tell, what the “best” option is - you definitely can tell that afterwards 
But yes, the analysts are expecting lower rates towards summer/autumn 2024. If you trust them and you have a good gut feeling, you can stay in Saron and then switch into a fixed term mortgage - maybe the rates are better in five, six months?
I fixed my mortgage in 2019. Honestly, I didn’t even bother looking at SARON. I was just looking for the best 10 year fix and also whether I could extend beyond 10 years without increasing rates too much.
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