Construction financing for house building in Brandenburg with difficulties

Good question. I didn't want to inquire with other banks in parallel while a qualified credit inquiry is ongoing with another bank. They can also see that in the Schufa. But scheduling non-binding consultation meetings probably doesn't hurt, does it?

They also see that in the Schufa.

That's great, then they know they have to make a decent offer and not exorbitant interest rates beyond the competition.

I have only been a silent reader here so far, but I would be happy to share my experience on this topic: We are building in a major German city and need around 775,000 euros from the bank. The equity of around 100,000 euros has already been deducted. We are both in our early 30s, have secure jobs, and earn very well. I don’t want to provide more details now.

The land prices here are extremely high and often exceed 1000 euros/m². We were really lucky here and stayed significantly below that. Construction costs are also not comparable to rural areas.

We went to a financial advisor who checked the situation and said that it would be no problem at all and that every bank would gladly take us. High income, still relatively young, high-quality fittings, etc. Then we submitted the first loan applications: ING rejected without giving a reason. Gladbacher Bank rejected because the financing amount was too high. Deutsche Bank rejected because the value of the building did not fit. Another direct bank rejected because they only do it if there are no further liabilities (we have no loans, “only” car leasing).

We were almost desperate and questioned the whole project. At my local Sparkasse, there is an interest calculator on the website. With our data, it only showed that you should get advice and no statement could be made. The interest rates for lower loan amounts were sometimes twice as high as those at ING. I had little hope, but still went to the appointment to simply get a second opinion on the situation.

That was the best decision! They had absolutely no problem with the amount and the value of the land and building. They know the local conditions and therefore found it reasonable. The initial interest offer was already on par with ING. We then negotiated a bit more and are now even below the ING offer. The review and approval took exactly 2 days. I can only encourage you to give local banks a chance. You can still talk to them, they understand the local conditions, and the interest offer really surprised us.

Thank you for your assessment and advocacy. Requests have been made to the Sparkasse and Volksbank in the area. However, we were redirected to their financing platform by the Sparkasse. I will keep you updated.

I have already heard from several sources that ING is becoming increasingly restrictive or standardized. The statement was that they have a relatively rigid set of rules and, before Corona, they probably accepted smaller deviations in income or property value. Nowadays, everything that does not fit 100% into their rules is apparently rejected.

Regarding the Volksbanken:
Not every Volksbank still finances on its own but acts only as a financial intermediary for other banks. The same applies, for example, to Consorsbank or the DKB (although they still have their own financing through DKB in their portfolio, but due to poor interest rates, they hardly offer it).

ING is my primary personal and business bank. None of it helped, my loan application was too unusual and not standard: rejected. They didn’t even take a closer look, even though the lending value for the property was only 30%. I never understood what was so risky about it for ING. Other banks also have nice loans.