Nine Mortgages, Three Banks – CHF 360,000 Less Interest per Year
Key facts
- Area
- Finance
- Mortgages
- 9 with 3 banks, CHF 120 m
- Approach
- Tender to 6 lenders
- Margin
- 1.12 → 0.82 percentage points
- Result
- around CHF 360,000 less interest per year
- In addition
- CHF 9 m of lending headroom released
Names, figures and details have been changed to protect confidentiality.
It is a Tuesday evening in October when Martin K. opens a letter from his bank at the kitchen table. A CHF 16 million fixed-rate mortgage expires in the spring, and the renewal is enclosed, ready to sign. The margin rises by 0.25 percentage points, which means CHF 40,000 more per year. He picks up a pen. Then he puts it down again, because a simple question occurs to him that he cannot answer: what am I actually paying in total?
A life’s work on nine contracts
Martin K. is 61. Over 25 years he has turned two inherited apartment buildings into a portfolio worth around CHF 210 million. He knows every property, every caretaker and almost every tenant. When a boiler breaks down somewhere, he often hears about it before the property manager does. He knows his financing less well.
It grew along with the portfolio, purchase by purchase: nine mortgages with three banks, CHF 120 million in total. Each was negotiated separately, often under time pressure because a notary appointment was coming up. Each deal made sense on its own. Nobody ever looked at the whole, not even the banks, because each one only sees its own share.
The next morning he calls FiPAX. He does not sign the letter for now.
Three findings that hurt
FiPAX lays all the contracts side by side, with margins, terms, collateral and termination clauses. Two weeks later Martin K. sits in a meeting room on Turbinenstrasse in front of an analysis he has never seen before. He leafs through it for a long time without saying a word.
The first finding concerns the margins. They range from 0.85 to 1.45 percentage points, for properties of comparable quality. On a CHF 10 million tranche, that difference costs CHF 60,000 a year. The most expensive contracts are precisely the ones he signed under the greatest time pressure.
Nine mortgages, nine prices
Margin over the reference rate in percentage points, per tranche (banks A, B and C)
FiPAXProperties of comparable quality, yet a price gap of 0.60 percentage points.
The second finding is a concentration. CHF 54 million falls due within 14 months, 45 percent of the total debt. If rates are one percentage point higher in that window, it will cost him CHF 540,000 a year, for the entire new term.
The third finding concerns the collateral. One bank holds mortgage certificates far in excess of what its loans require. Economically the reserve belongs to him, but he cannot use it. Two months earlier a broker had offered him a building. Martin K. turned it down because he thought he lacked the funds.
The timing does not make things easier. On 24 September 2026 the SNB kept its policy rate at 0 percent. Even so, rising rates abroad have at times pushed indicative rates for ten-year fixed mortgages above 2 percent, and under Basel III margins on investment properties have risen. Anyone who puts everything on a single date is betting their life’s work on one day.
I bought every property on its own. It never occurred to me that I had also become a bank that does not spread its risk.
One dossier, six lenders
The obvious move would be to call the bank and haggle. FiPAX takes a different approach. First it builds a single dossier with the rent roll, valuations, the condition of the properties and cash flows. That takes three weeks, but it fundamentally changes the starting point: for the first time a lender can assess the portfolio as a whole rather than individual buildings. Then the three existing banks and three new lenders, including an insurer and a pension fund, bid on the same basis. For the first time the offers can genuinely be compared.
After eight days the phone rings. The long-standing relationship manager is friendly but audibly put out: after all, they have known each other for twenty years. Martin K. listens and, for the first time in those twenty years, does not have to concede anything. Two weeks later the same bank puts a new offer on the table. The margin on the CHF 16 million is 0.40 percentage points below the offer from the kitchen table.
Not every offer is accepted. The cheapest one contains a clause allowing the bank to reset the terms after two years. Martin K. passes on it. The lowest margin is not automatically the best financing. Tranches with high early repayment costs are not terminated early either, but switched only when they expire. FiPAX weighs every change against its exit costs before recommending it.
One interest-rate date becomes five
The maturities are spread over five years, and in no year do more than CHF 24 million fall due. The same one-point rise in rates now costs CHF 240,000 in the worst year instead of CHF 540,000. Martin K. no longer has to guess where rates will be in fourteen months. He renews one-fifth each year and takes the market as it comes.
Before: one big cluster
Maturities in CHF million per year
FiPAX45 percent of the debt falls due within 14 months.
After: five equal steps
Maturities in CHF million per year
FiPAXThe risk of any single interest-rate date is more than halved.
In parallel, the mortgage certificates are reorganised. The surplus certificates at one bank are allocated to the properties where they are needed, and the rest are released. Around CHF 9 million in free lending capacity becomes visible and usable, without creating a single new certificate.
The outcome
The average margin falls from 1.12 to 0.82 percentage points. Once all tranches have been switched, this saves around CHF 360,000 a year, or CHF 1.8 million over five years. The portfolio has not become riskier but calmer: less dependent on a single date and on a single bank.
In the spring the broker calls again: an apartment building, several bidders, a short deadline. This time Martin K. does not turn it down. The financing commitment arrives within a week, based on the dossier that already exists.
Three questions for your own portfolio
Do you know your average margin across all your banks? Do you know how much of your debt falls due in the next 24 months? And how much free lending capacity is tied up in your mortgage certificates?
If you hesitated, you are sitting at the same kitchen table as Martin K. When were your mortgages last negotiated as a whole? We will review your portfolio.
Out of respect for our clients’ confidentiality, names, figures and other details have been altered or are illustrative.