Broker for mortgages abroad?

caliston

I'm looking at getting a mortgage to build a house in Greece, but finding it rather difficult to get information. I can go to the Greek banks and do the calculations myself, but this is rather a high-risk strategy. Are there any mortgage brokers in this country who specialise in mortgages abroad? Or any websites where expat-types congregate to discuss this sort of thing?

(So far I've managed to find http://www.credit.gr/ which is a rather poor clone of MSE in Greek, and googling for 'στεγαστικά δάνεια' (housing loans) finds most of the banks' offerings. Ah, found one Greek broker:http://www.primeestate.gr/english/mortgages_insurances.htm )

Conrad

I have arranged mortgages for foreign property.

Foreign lenders are totally unlike UK lenders. You must expect a long process and a lack of information / updates throughout. They tend to take months gathering information and just when you think the offer is secure they will dream up a huge list of other requirments.
They can decline a case at the last moment without giving a reason and THE TERMS OF THE OFFER CAN BE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TO THE EARLIAR ILLUSTRATIONS.

If you proceed without high expectations and allow far far more time that you possibly think you will need, you might just get lucky!

Keep in mind they work on an analysis of outgoings vs income and they wont use any potential rental income.

Good luck

caliston

I didn't have many illusions to start with, but thanks for the warning

Ian_W

A broker for mortgages abroad:
https://www.mortgagesoverseas.com/
Not a recommendation - when we looked at them I thought they were expensive - but mortgages for abroad tend to be expensive compared to UK ones. They are however very long established so must be doing something right for their clients.

AndrewSmith

Think very carefully about taking on a foreign mortgage.

Even though you my be able to secure a rte that appears to be fixed you are still vulnerable to currency fluctuations which can have quite an impact on the 'real' cost of the mortgage itself and the monthly payments.

caliston

Thanks - it's useful to hear more warnings. This case is rather odd because currently the income (being self-employed) is mostly in US$ so there's going to be at least one currency exchange involved. So, unless it's possible to take out a mortgage in US$ on property in Europe[1], it's probably safer to do it in Euro rather than in pounds (when it would have to go US$->£ rather than US$->Euro) since the construction costs are in Euro. The interest rates in Euroland also seem to be lower at the moment (eg 'example' 4.45% fixed on EUR100,000 for 5 years, compared with maybe ~6% in dollars)

[1] which it might be. Citibank do dollar accounts, so might do dollar mortgages.

If things change (which they might do in 20 years time), how easy is it to remortgage and change currency at the same time (eg replace a Greek bank [in Euro] with a UK bank [in pounds] that operates there, say HSBC)?

I suppose the only way to find out rates for sure is to traipse around all the Greek banks and get quotes.