Ready apartment - financing now or wait?!

Hello everyone,

I am about to finally purchase a suitable condominium after several years of searching. :-)

The apartment is already finished and currently occupied, but the current owners will probably only be able to move into their new building at the beginning of 2022. With some luck, they will be in by Christmas, but I prefer to be pessimistic... So the takeover for me will also be then.

I have now heard and read opinions of people who would close the loan already now to secure the current interest rate, while others would wait and act "shortly" before...

Of course, I already have an offer "for now." It includes a period without commitment interest until move-in.

What do you think is more sensible in this matter? I mean, no one can of course look into the crystal ball... I am simply inexperienced and don't know how to proceed.

Thanks in advance and best regards

If you can have everything notarized, then go ahead and close it. At least the matter will be settled once and for all. Interest rates will never rise this year... Far too much money has been pumped into the economy worldwide to keep it running.

The case of rising interest rates would anyway argue in favor of locking in now. However, I do not expect a further fall in interest rates either. Where should it even go? (The idea of negative interest rates is quite funny, but I somehow do not see it as realistic for the private customer.)

No one has a crystal ball for interest rate developments. But I also consider negative interest rates for private individuals to be unrealistic. If you now get an interest rate of 0.7% (depending on equity) and possibly 0.6% later in the year, that amounts to 300€ per year on 300,000€ at the beginning. Personally, I also see more of a risk that interest rates will rise, probably not significantly this and next year, but I consider the sword of Damocles that is inflation to be not entirely unfounded.

but I see the Damocles sword of inflation as not entirely unfounded.

The inflation is already here!

Why negative interest rates are already here, but only starting from 100,000 EUR in balance. But bank after bank follows suit. Who knows when it will be 50,000 EUR and eventually only 10,000 EUR?