Negotiating a Mortgage for a new apartment in Poland

I'm looking to take a loan for a new apartment, and wondering how much I can trust all these online credit calculators. Considering the state of the current banking climate, it seems incredible that some banks are offering 1.5% "provision" and 6% interest, while others charge 4% provision and 8.5% interest! (yes you, Multibank).

I know I'll have to visit half a dozen banks in person to get a straight answer, but how much flexibility is there in these offers? I'll be looking to borrow around half a million zlots, if the amount will affect things.

On a side note, can anyone recommend any current bank's offers or products?

There's not much you can negotiate, the offers are pretty much fixed, LTV, amount of money you want to borrow and in result you get the conditions of bank x or y. If you mean how much do they differ between the banks, they do differ significaly although I don't think as much as you say... I'm not up to date with details but I think that with 500k and LTV (loan to value, generally how much of your own money you put into this deal) between 0.5 and 0.8 you should find an offer with 0% provision, and interest=WIBOR3M or 6M + 1.3-1.4% (so ~5% but it's fluctuating daily) If LTV is over 0.8 there will be probably additional cost of high LTV insurance or something similar...


The effect of all this mess is that banks went up with prices, several years ago WIBOR + 0.45%-0.95% was the standard for 100-500k loans.

BTW maybe you should focus more on negotiating with developer... even If 500k is total cost of flat, It seems to be a lot, unless really big and in Warsaw...

Thanks Grzegorz, you pretty much confirmed what I thought. I'm expecting to negotiate around 10% on the price of the flat, but they all seem to offer a parking space for 30k PLN, and I have no idea if this can be added to the mortgage or needs to be paid in cash so that will be my negotiating territory.

As for the mortgage, I'm seeing some good offers from PKO, Millennium and Bank Zachodni. Citibank's page says they only lend to people of Polish nationality, and ING still want a 20% deposit.

It's the high marza (loan price?) that's got me most worried. I never understood that idea of charging an up-front fee to lend money.

If it is a garage then I think there should be no problem to add it... If it is just a parking space but is somehow "fixed" to the flat (so you can't sell it without selling a flat) then there's a chance to add it too... +30k then seems to be just a marketing trick on the developers' side, If you can't buy (or later sell) without it, It's in fact not 500+30 but 530.


Check BGŻ, BOŚ, BPH and Getin too. They used to have good deals.



I think it's prowizja you are talking about. Marża is the fixed part of interest rate, It's WIBOR (interbank rate) + marża. It's most probably due to a fact that you want to borrow all (or vast majority) of transaction's cost and LTV is over 0.8 then. Then for a bank there's a serious risk that they won't recover all the money they lent If you stop repaying it... then once they take over the property, add the administrative costs etc. and sell it, it will be still less then the money you borrowed from them... That's why these days many banks don't lend at all if LTV is over 0.8, others charge extra (that's prowizja) to cover the additional risk. Just take a look at these online calculators (they should not be 100% trusted, might be not up to date in some cases but give the overall idea...) type in 500k as the amount of loan and 500k as the value of property and then compare it with 400k loan and 500k value of property, you should see many more banks and much better offers.

So you should check what you can do to get down with LTV to 0.8 level. It doesn't have to mean you must have 20% in cash, for example in case of secondary market Value is (at least for most banks I think) what a certified guy estimate it to be (it costs around 350 PLN to get the estimation done) so for example If you buy a flat for 240k, which was estimated to be worth 300k, you get LTV=0.8 (because 240k loan is secured on a property worth 300k) without putting any own money into it... In case of primary market in the past they were just taking the price as Value but now when you can negotiate with devs I'm not sure how banks threat it, for example If you manage to get the price down by 10%, will the value be 450 or initial 500 ? It's something worth investigating because if it is still 500k for the bank, then you have LTV 0.9, find 50k in cash and with LTV 0.8 you should find a bank not charging prowizja and offering better marża. Also ask If there are any extra costs, some banks may demand life insurance or some other shyt, while others not. Use calculators and other online resources just to initially select 6-8 banks and then visit them with your own checklist.

BGZ and KredytBank are now combing their loan systems (one bank bought the other) so I'm waiting to hear from their advisors. I've chosen not to talk to BOS or Getin because they have extremely suspicious clauses in their offers and bad reputations. BOS want a "carte blanche" as a security from you - a paper you sign saying you owe them X zloties in the event of a default, but you leave the X blank. Shocking! Unfortunately, BPH these days just aren't competitive.

You're right that I'm confusing prowizja and marza (stayed up too late reading too many offers). Having called a few banks, it just seems that most of the online calculators are hopelessly out of date, so I'll be calling ten banks in total as well as discussing things with the financial advisor connected to the development, since I'm looking at new builds.

This isn't my first mortgage in Poland but you've explained things beautifully Grzegorz, so thank you.

Try the free service of Polish mortgage broker ex. Amtrust Group poland-mortgage-broker.com

Gzegorz, wonderful explanation, it answered a lot of questions I had re mortgages in Poland.

If I may ask another question re obtaining a mortgage in Poland; me and my fiancé are planning to purchase an apartment in Poland later on this year, as we are moving back to Poland. My partner is Polish and has had a bank account in Poland for all of his adult life. I have read in several places that we need to work for around 3 years before we are accepted for a home loan. Is this true? We intend to obtain jobs before applying for a mortgage however I don't know if we will be able to take the loan immediately or have to wait for some period of time.

With regards to deposit, do Polish banks require that you have saved a certain percentage of the total value of the loan?

Thanks!