Getting a loan through an Austrian bank

Here we go again. Folnegović was out there posing as Valentin Meyer just to line his own pockets. They finally arrested him, but then they let him walk because apparently, there’s "no evidence." I guess the word of all those people he scammed doesn't count for anything.

I’m reaching out to anyone here who has paperwork or any documentation related to the Ad Axxa group. Please send me a private message. A massive fraud ring has been uncovered that swindled our money, and I am officially taking this to the Department of Justice. The supposed middlemen are based right here in the States, and I am not backing down because I have the evidence to prove what they did. Reach out to me—let's work together to put an end to this.

Terry Ross11 said:That’s exactly how it works. My husband and I both run small businesses, and since we couldn't get traditional domestic financing, we went with RBA in Leibnitz—specifically a mortgage-backed loan. That's all they care about: whether the title is clear and the equity is unencumbered. We send our payments to Leibnitz, not locally.
We didn't overextend ourselves, so even with a five-year term, the monthly payments are manageable. For the most part, we're comfortably ahead of the curve.

Greetings! Would you be so kind as to explain the procedure you followed to secure a deal with that bank? Basically, how did you navigate the path to getting a loan in Austria? I would be eternally grateful for your guidance!🙏

For anyone out there looking to jump headfirst into a new loan, feel free to take a look at this incredibly eye-opening link I stumbled upon online the other day. Before you go rushing out to sign your life away for some quick credit, you really ought to read up on everything surrounding that whole Dream Loan scandal over in Canada, so here is the link to get you started...

And here is some more fuel for the fire...
http://web.vecer.com/portali/vecer/v...09011205395803

http://web.vecer.com/portali/vecer/v...09030405412641
http://nepremicnine.si21.com/Novice_...ovoljenja.html

...If we were just regular folks, we’d find a way to scrape by during a crisis; I'd much rather be broke than lose absolutely everything...

swiftcyclist58, thanks for the links. You're spot on—better to be broke than dead in a ditch. It’s a total disaster out there; feels like theft is everywhere you look. Thanks again.

mellowrider10 said:swiftcyclist58, thanks for the links. You're spot on—better to be broke than dead in a ditch. It’s a total disaster out there; feels like theft is everywhere you look. Thanks again.

Let's not paint everyone with the same brush here...
I actually carry a loan over at RBA, and
I have to say, aside from that hefty 5% agency fee that pushed me toward the bank in the first place,
my experience with them has been nothing but solid.
In fact, my standing with them is way better than most people dealing with banks in America.

swiftcyclist58 said:...If we were just regular folks, we’d find a way to scrape by during a crisis; I'd much rather be broke than lose absolutely everything...

I'm not intimately familiar with the situation in Canada, so I don't quite grasp the specific MO used by that "gang," but one group choosing to prey on naive people through crime doesn't inherently make foreign loans "dangerous." In my experience, accessing foreign credit is relatively straightforward if you have a foreign guarantor willing to back your assets. The real question is what the interest rates look like on those types of non-purpose loans, but I don't see an automatic risk of fraud if you simply cut out the various "middlemen"...

swiftcyclist58 said:...If we were just regular folks, we’d find a way to scrape by during a crisis; I'd much rather be broke than lose absolutely everything...

Oh, absolutely...
When it comes to loans and debt, you really have to exercise some actual caution instead of acting like
our politicians...

Thomas Ortiz3 said:I'm not intimately familiar with the situation in Canada, so I don't quite grasp the specific MO used by that "gang," but one group choosing to prey on naive people through crime doesn't inherently make foreign loans "dangerous." In my experience, accessing foreign credit is relatively straightforward if you have a foreign guarantor willing to back your assets. The real question is what the interest rates look like on those types of non-purpose loans, but I don't see an automatic risk of fraud if you simply cut out the various "middlemen"...

There’s absolutely zero fraud risk involved.
The Austrians are just trying to collect on their loans without having to dump real estate into foreclosure auctions for pennies on the dollar.
The rate is 4% plus a 6-month LIBOR.
When I took out my loan back in November 2008, the total was sitting at 9%, but by mid-2009 and through all of 2010, it dropped below 5%.
The interesting part is that even when the interest rate shifts, your monthly payment stays exactly the same.
If the rate climbs, you just end up paying a few extra installments; if it drops, more of your payment goes toward the principal, so you pay off the debt sooner.
It's a far cry from how our banks operate, where they just hike your monthly payment the second interest rates go up.

😲 Are you actually serious right now? I’ve never heard of anything like that in my life.

Basically, when you sign for a loan, you negotiate the monthly payment amount and... how much cash you want upfront. Everything else is just whatever the LIBOR happens to be 😁

Donna Davis8 said:😲 Are you actually serious right now? I’ve never heard of anything like that in my life.

Basically, when you sign for a loan, you negotiate the monthly payment amount and... how much cash you want upfront. Everything else is just whatever the LIBOR happens to be 😁

I am definitely not joking.
When you set up a loan, you decide on the principal repayment period.
The monthly payment stays fixed. But if interest rates drop (which is happening in my case),
a bigger chunk of that payment goes toward the principal, so the balance starts shrinking "faster."
In just 26 months, I’ve already knocked $7,000 off a $50,000 loan.
If the LIBOR doesn't spike above 6%, I'll be totally done with this debt in 11 years instead of 15.
A lot of this stuff is standard practice in Austria.
Plus, the life insurance my wife and I pay $40 a month for (we’re both covered for $50,000 each) isn't just a basic policy; it acts like an accumulating account that could potentially cover, say, the final year of payments (about $6,000).
There aren't even any prepayment penalties.
Starting next year, they’re opening an account here in the States, so I won't have to deal with those annoying foreign transaction fees anymore.
And so on...
In the old system, after three years, you’d still end up owing the bank extra just to settle the amount you originally took out.
And that's just talking about dollars. As for the people holding loans in Switzerland, I don't even want to get into those calculations—it's a nightmare.

Megan Grant4 said:I am definitely not joking.
When you set up a loan, you decide on the principal repayment period.
The monthly payment stays fixed. But if interest rates drop (which is happening in my case),
a bigger chunk of that payment goes toward the principal, so the balance starts shrinking "faster."
In just 26 months, I’ve already knocked $7,000 off a $50,000 loan.
If the LIBOR doesn't spike above 6%, I'll be totally done with this debt in 11 years instead of 15.
A lot of this stuff is standard practice in Austria.
Plus, the life insurance my wife and I pay $40 a month for (we’re both covered for $50,000 each) isn't just a basic policy; it acts like an accumulating account that could potentially cover, say, the final year of payments (about $6,000).
There aren't even any prepayment penalties.
Starting next year, they’re opening an account here in the States, so I won't have to deal with those annoying foreign transaction fees anymore.
And so on...
In the old system, after three years, you’d still end up owing the bank extra just to settle the amount you originally took out.
And that's just talking about dollars. As for the people holding loans in Switzerland, I don't even want to get into those calculations—it's a nightmare.

So we’re looking at constant, automatic reprogramming that they clearly aren't charging for. I wouldn't call that unusual—the computer is just running the interest calculations anyway—what's actually strange is that banks here don't even offer that service...

Then there's my colleague, an Austrian, who bought a house in Austria about two years ago. He secured a mortgage at 1.5% plus LIBOR. He did mention having a solid broker; a bad one will struggle to pull anything better than 2-2.5% plus LIBOR. It makes no sense why mortgages would be cheaper than personal loans—assuming yours is nearly double what he got—if the collateral is sound, like a Lombard loan. I fail to see how higher rates could be justified by any increased risk...

Thomas Ortiz3 said:So we’re looking at constant, automatic reprogramming that they clearly aren't charging for. I wouldn't call that unusual—the computer is just running the interest calculations anyway—what's actually strange is that banks here don't even offer that service...

Then there's my colleague, an Austrian, who bought a house in Austria about two years ago. He secured a mortgage at 1.5% plus LIBOR. He did mention having a solid broker; a bad one will struggle to pull anything better than 2-2.5% plus LIBOR. It makes no sense why mortgages would be cheaper than personal loans—assuming yours is nearly double what he got—if the collateral is sound, like a Lombard loan. I fail to see how higher rates could be justified by any increased risk...

Well, that Austrian guy is using a residential mortgage, whereas the only thing I could actually qualify for was
a personal loan, which carries the highest interest rates imaginable.

You're absolutely right that it's strange how banks handle repayments here compared to elsewhere...
Even the banks themselves choose to lend to the government at around 4.5% plus LIBOR.
America is basically a playground for banks. The profit margins they pull here are just insane.
I actually got a late payment notice from my bank in Austria because of a typo in my transfer details, and
they charged me 8 €.
That’s like getting a notice here and being slapped with a 15-$$6.75 fee.
Give it a little more time and our notices jump straight up to 50 or $67 bucks.

Megan Grant4 said:Well, that Austrian guy is using a residential mortgage, whereas the only thing I could actually qualify for was
a personal loan, which carries the highest interest rates imaginable.

You're absolutely right that it's strange how banks handle repayments here compared to elsewhere...
Even the banks themselves choose to lend to the government at around 4.5% plus LIBOR.
America is basically a playground for banks. The profit margins they pull here are just insane.
I actually got a late payment notice from my bank in Austria because of a typo in my transfer details, and
they charged me 8 €.
That’s like getting a notice here and being slapped with a 15-$$6.75 fee.
Give it a little more time and our notices jump straight up to 50 or $67 bucks.

True, and I assumed yours was a personal loan. What kind of insurance is backing it?

In any case, Megan Grant4 is very modern 👍

An annuity payment is a fixed amount. If interest rates drop (which happened in my case),
you end up paying off more of the principal with each installment, so the balance drops "faster."

Look, theoretically, this is crystal clear to me. The monthly payment stays the same. It’s just some little guy working behind the scenes every month, calculating how much of that payment goes toward the principal versus the interest (and to figure out that interest, they need the LIBOR, which fluctuates). So, if you're lucky enough to have consistently low interest rates, you pay down the debt faster.
Most American banks have conditioned me to expect the worst, so I didn't even think about this. Honestly, here in the States, when you try to pay extra toward your loan, they often just apply it to next month's bill instead. God forbid they actually reduce your principal just because you paid more than a few installments—some banks do that, but it's rare.

I don't get why home equity loans are cheaper than personal loans (I assume your personal loan will be nearly double what that one for the Austrians is), assuming the collateral is solid (like a Lombard loan). I don't see how a higher interest rate could be justified by increased risk.

I really don't understand why home equity loans are so much pricier than standard mortgages. Aside from the fact that with a home equity loan you get cash in hand, while with a mortgage everything goes directly into the property you're using as collateral? Actually, the biggest difference is that for a mortgage, you have to pass strict credit scoring to prove you're eligible, whereas with home equity, until recently, the property itself was almost enough and your income mattered much less. I don't get why the rate on home equity is so much higher compared to mortgages. In both cases, the borrower doesn't want to lose the property they pledged as collateral. That's why they're sending out those papers now asking people to declare if they actually live in the property they took the mortgage for, but that's a whole different story. Man, we've written a lot of useful stuff here 🙂

Thomas Ortiz3 said:True, and I assumed yours was a personal loan. What kind of insurance is backing it?

A mortgage on the house...

Donna Davis8 said:In any case, Megan Grant4 is very modern 👍

An annuity payment is a fixed amount. If interest rates drop (which happened in my case),
you end up paying off more of the principal with each installment, so the balance drops "faster."

Look, theoretically, this is crystal clear to me. The monthly payment stays the same. It’s just some little guy working behind the scenes every month, calculating how much of that payment goes toward the principal versus the interest (and to figure out that interest, they need the LIBOR, which fluctuates). So, if you're lucky enough to have consistently low interest rates, you pay down the debt faster.
Most American banks have conditioned me to expect the worst, so I didn't even think about this. Honestly, here in the States, when you try to pay extra toward your loan, they often just apply it to next month's bill instead. God forbid they actually reduce your principal just because you paid more than a few installments—some banks do that, but it's rare.

I don't get why home equity loans are cheaper than personal loans (I assume your personal loan will be nearly double what that one for the Austrians is), assuming the collateral is solid (like a Lombard loan). I don't see how a higher interest rate could be justified by increased risk.

I really don't understand why home equity loans are so much pricier than standard mortgages. Aside from the fact that with a home equity loan you get cash in hand, while with a mortgage everything goes directly into the property you're using as collateral? Actually, the biggest difference is that for a mortgage, you have to pass strict credit scoring to prove you're eligible, whereas with home equity, until recently, the property itself was almost enough and your income mattered much less. I don't get why the rate on home equity is so much higher compared to mortgages. In both cases, the borrower doesn't want to lose the property they pledged as collateral. That's why they're sending out those papers now asking people to declare if they actually live in the property they took the mortgage for, but that's a whole different story. Man, we've written a lot of useful stuff here 🙂

Wait, why "living in the future"?

I’m pretty sure they adjust the monthly payment every quarter if the LIBOR shifts...
The whole thing is completely automated on their end.
Honestly, the biggest win is that they don't charge any prepayment penalties, and you don't even have to wait until you've saved up three full payments; you can just drop extra cash whenever you feel like it without having to give them a heads-up or file some annoying paperwork...
And obviously, the interest is always calculated based on whatever principal is left outstanding.

Megan Grant4 said:Wait, why "living in the future"?

I’m pretty sure they adjust the monthly payment every quarter if the LIBOR shifts...
The whole thing is completely automated on their end.
Honestly, the biggest win is that they don't charge any prepayment penalties, and you don't even have to wait until you've saved up three full payments; you can just drop extra cash whenever you feel like it without having to give them a heads-up or file some annoying paperwork...
And obviously, the interest is always calculated based on whatever principal is left outstanding.

That sounds incredible..👍 Did you call the bank directly? I'm actually looking for a loan like that... specifically a mortgage. Could you help me out with some details? Like a phone number or a branch location? I'd love to head over and have a serious conversation with them. 🙂