Construction financing through intermediaries or local banks

Can I, after receiving an offer from the broker, also have a direct consultation with the same bank offered, or does that kick the broker and their offer out?

well, because of such an approach, I really have to consider whether to first charge a "€1,000 deposit" for the work I am doing here in advance.

I only earn money when a contract is also concluded through me.

Currently, this approach is already quite correct... people come to me wanting a good offer. I work it out, send it to them, and then they run with it to their house bank, or somewhere else, and say: I get this here, can you give me the same offer?

and if I have worked 10 times like this and only closed 1 contract, I really start to have doubts about it.

I probably have to work differently:
The customer should send me the offer, and then I say:
can it be better or not, and if it can be better, then I say: 1.95% instead of the 2.10% from your offer, but I won’t reveal the bank.

You as a customer can inquire with 5-10 banks yourself and do the work 5-10 times to see where you get the cheapest offer.
For that, you don’t need a broker if you don’t want to go through one yourself.

PS. of course, the deposit would be refundable if in the end the contract is concluded through me. Then people here will think about whether to take my offers somewhere else or not ;)

one last note:
if I work in one month and work 200h (simply because the number is easy to represent)
if I “work for free” 100h (creating offers for customers who then go elsewhere and close somewhere else… partly under the same conditions, or even slightly higher (if it’s the house bank, I can understand))
and with 100h of work I make the contracts where I earn money.

that means the 100h with contracts must pay for 200h!
(the customers who close must each co-finance 1 more customer who does not close!)

if now the number of customers where I make offers and financing proposals increases (just yesterday on the phone I got feedback that they have not received such good advice anywhere else!) but the customers then close elsewhere
meaning if I “work for free” 150h per month,
and only make contracts in 50h, meaning the 50h customers must co-finance the other 150h, meaning I have to calculate differently here, meaning 1 customer who closes must co-finance 3 other customers who don’t close), for it to be worthwhile for me.

if the ratio drops further, then nothing else remains:
offer against money/deposit
or simply the customer sends me their offers (with all key data to be able to realistically compare) and then I say: can it be better or not.
if the customer then wants the better offer = deposit, and on closing this is refunded.

I find it rather amusing when people say: bank advice must be "free of charge", but then they conclude a Riester contract where 8% distribution costs are in the contract (8% both from the paid-in contributions and also the state subsidies, and calculated over the term… this quickly adds up to sometimes €5,000-8,000)
because no one is willing to pay €500-1000 for fee-based advice.

I understand your frustration, but that is simply part of your business. How much commission do you take? 1-2% … maybe closer to 1%? That makes 5,000 - 10,000 euros commission for 500k euro loan for 4-8 hours of work. You don't ask whether the hourly rate is reasonable, do you?

That's way too much whining! Chin up, provide good advice, and if someone goes to the bank, you can rise above it.

Phew, you really had to let off a lot of frustration there... ... and you derived all that from my "question"? Really? A question with the background of how I can behave as someone looking for financing without harming the broker? You haven't even answered that. GD

I understand your frustration, but that is simply part of your business. How much commission do you take? 1-2% … maybe closer to 1%? That means for a 500k Euro loan, 5,000 - 10,000 Euro commission for 4-8 hours of work. You don’t ask whether the hourly rate is reasonable, do you?

That’s way too much whining! Chin up, provide good advice, and if someone goes to the bank, you can also rise above it.

very interesting approach.

so if I would get 5,000-10,000€ commission for 4-8 hours, I wouldn’t be here ;)

if it’s that easy, may I ask why you don’t do it?
if you’re not a banker, you can quickly get the proof of expertise (so 6-12 months....) and then off you go ;)

For each loan, there is also an information sheet that states what is earned, and Interhyp earned 1% on my loans. I think you should renegotiate if that seems way too high to you ;)

I was annoyed by this statement:
"Can I, after receiving an offer from the broker, still have a direct consultation with the same bank offered or do I then kick out the broker and his offer?"

That means you let the broker find the cheapest bank for you (so he works, where you use his knowledge, etc!)

only to then go directly to the same bank that HE found for you.

Honestly, I find this approach very rude.

Do you want a solution?
2 options:
- if you don’t want to pay the broker (because you don’t finalize through him!)
then don’t go to him, but rather go to 10-15 banks yourself, have them make you offers, and then choose the cheapest one.
So do the work yourself!
- or be fair, and say: You do the work of finding the cheapest bank for me, and for that I pay you.
So either I finalize through you, or you get 500€ for the effort!
(so either you do it via him as a broker who receives commission, or you do it as a fee-based consultation, because he picked the bank for you)
In the end, he saved you many hours of work if you had to compare 10-15 banks yourself!
That’s fair, right???

This is not about my well-being, it’s about what I personally think of such things or such approaches. (shows strength of character!)


back to the point ;)

So 4-8h of work only applies if someone comes and says:
I have a house worth 500,000€, need follow-up financing (let’s say 100,000€), knows exactly what he wants, so 10 years fixed term, 5% repayment plus 5% interest.
I don’t have to calculate any constructs, etc.
Then here at the bank you do a "simplified follow-up financing," i.e. only half as many documents as with new financing.
The application is then quickly done.
And then for 100,000€ (small amount) I take 1% = 1000€
(considering that half do it = per 4-8h it’s then 500€, if 1/3 do it, that’s 333€ for 4-8h!)

Quick question:
what do you pay per hour to the mechanic etc. in the workshop? What do you pay the craftsman per hour?
We quickly come to 60-80€ per hour + 19% VAT, so we’re at 70-95€ per hour.
If a broker then needs about 20h per case (why? I’ll come to that later) and then only every 3rd case is accepted, then he probably worked around 60h, what would be fair? What commission can he take per case?

And financing over 500,000€ is rather rare, considering there are many follow-up financings (which then usually end around 100-200k€), so where’s the average? Rather around 300-350k€ ;)

And one case, whether 100,000€ or 400,000€ financing, always involves the same work.

And which broker today can still afford to take 2% commission.

So
1) There is already strong competition among brokers themselves (if I know the customer was at Check24, and they sent him an offer, then I will probably not send an offer with 1% but rather 0.80% commission!)
2) Not only brokers but now many banks are also active there.
If you come for construction financing advice at the Commerzbank and they can’t make a good offer, they immediately make an offer as a broker for another bank, and Commerzbank also mediates you to other banks.
3) It goes so far that if you are even a customer of a savings bank, and they can only offer 2.0% then they say: we will refer you to another savings bank, where it’s still 1.69%.
(and the customer then came to me, and I offered him the same savings bank at 1.62%, but with 0.80% commission... and for 0.07% interest difference, it is probably 0.70% commission difference, meaning his house bank, a savings bank, had calculated the offer with 1.50% commission).

So, enough complaining ;)