Exceptional Support!
At a first glance, approaching the purchase of an apartment in German as an expat was an intimidating experience; luckily we were able to come across the highly professional assistance provided by Karsten. Initially we asked for general info and consulting on the overall home-buying process, and Karsten cleared our doubts (in English):
- he outlined a reliable and market-oriented budget we should consider, based on our income, the area we were looking for and our private equity
- he detailed exactly all the side costs and fees we had to face, and their incidence on the final price of an apartment (brokerage commission, real estate transfer tax, notary fees, land registry entry, interpreter and others)
- he showed us an overview of all the available bank offers and relative pros/cons for each option; we discovered that he had access to more advantageous conditions with respect to our private searching
- he explained more in detail the methods used by banks to distribute mortgage monthly rates between principal and interests costs, their impact in long run loans, and many other rules applied on the loans by German banks
- he portrayed a walk-through of the whole purchase process, including the different bureaucratic steps and an approximate timeline
Based on all that information, we were able to search a home with clearer understanding of our possibilities and the steps to follow. Once we were finally able to find a promising apartment, we started the real mortgage request, and this time:
- he suggested us an approach to set our offer with the sellers, since the sale had become a bidding (several offers from potential buyers)
- he investigated several loan options, based on the apartment price, that could suit our needs the best way possible: years of mortgage, monthly rates, interest offered by the banks, precise amount of personal equity invested, flexibility for adding additional capitals on the monthly rate, etc. Based on that we came up with a satisfying mortgage plan, that has been accepted by the bank two weeks after sending the necessary documents
- he personally contacted the sellers to back-up our economical situation and reassure the owners of our creditworthiness
- he helped out to arrange our meeting with a notary in a very short notice (due to last-minute needs of the sellers), suggested some changes on the standard contract that would be beneficial for us and even participated to the appointment directly
- he was always available to set up quick meetings/phone calls in case we had any new confusion during the process
The whole journey was intense, but very linear and in accordance with the information provided by Karsten. We are very satisfied with all the support he gave us and would definitely recommend him to any person interested in a German/English speaking loan broker!
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