Poor account management at home bank, application at another bank?

One piece of advice: do not take out consumer loans. Live decently, only buy things you can really afford to pay for in cash.

For the score at Schufa, it is actually not best to have no loans at all. Because people who have no credit experience at all are statistically worse at fulfilling their first loan. Having successfully paid off one or two loans is actually better.
However, when applying for a mortgage loan, it's better not to have any ongoing installment loans for the household budget.
@TE: So the best thing is to take out a consumer loan for something now, but have it paid off half a year before the intended mortgage loan.
You can also put the money into a fixed deposit.

Since when do you get a call for that? I basically use my overdraft almost every month. And I have been doing that for many years. That's what it’s there for anyway.

It's about the tolerated overdraft. So you haven't applied for or been granted an overdraft on your account, but since you have a regular income, the bank doesn't make a fuss if at the end of the month you have no money left but a debit comes through. Then you are in the tolerated overdraft, and at smaller regional banks you get a call asking when you will settle it or whether you want to set up a proper overdraft.

Ah, ok. I only know it from my experience that I am allowed to overdraft up to €1,000. Then I must have probably stated that at some point when setting up the account. It's been too long ago. I didn't know about this "tolerated" overdraft. I would have expected that without a registered overdraft you can't overdraft at all. Thanks for the clarification.

I would have expected that without an overdraft registered, you wouldn't be able to overdraft at all.

I think it really varies how banks handle this. I once had a booking of just under 1€ too much directly reversed. Which often also costs fees, if I remember correctly (or that was just the payment being re-initiated at the debiting party, who charged for it? Or even both....) ... in any case, I do not recommend trying it out (As a student, my account sometimes went down to zero at the end of the month... and unfortunately once went to -1...) My bank back then did not just tolerate/call about it, but blocked the debit; but I have also heard from others that their banks are not as strict there (interest rates are usually even higher though). So it depends a bit on how the banks handle it ;) Ultimately, if that was some time ago, nothing is recorded about it in the credit bureau now anyway, and you plan not to mess up your account for years to come, then I think it really isn't a problem. Most likely not even with your main bank, and as already mentioned, many financing arrangements don’t go through the main bank anyway.

Yes, exactly, it varies depending on the bank. My feeling tells me that especially direct banks tend to be strict. Where an algorithm is in control, there are simply no blind eyes turned. If it is still a regional Volksbank where the customer advisor practically knows you personally, it is handled differently. Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer of these, or only from a certain income/wealth onwards.

Perhaps one simply has to mentally say goodbye to the concept of "Hausbank." You don't owe a bank anything just because you've been a customer there for a long time. I mean, if I don't feel comfortable there or think they're looking at me sideways, I'll just go to another bank.

One does not owe a bank anything just because one has been a customer there for a long time.

Exactly - on the contrary, they owe me something! Deutsche Bank once annoyed me even though I had been their customer for 20 years. So I switched without hesitation.