First, there are many banks and many choices.
I bought several houses in Shanghai, mostly state-owned banks. In addition to state-owned banks, there are Fujian Bank and China CITIC Bank, but they are not the mainstream after all. In contrast, there are many banks in Britain. So that when you negotiate with the intermediary, they will recommend some small banks to you, which will be more favorable than big banks. Even people like Tesco have their own banks, and they try to sell me their home loans.
Second, the competition is fierce.
Almost every bank, you can go in and make an appointment for a loan. The loan specialist will ask you in detail about the total purchase price of the house, the situation, the annual household income and other details, and give you a loan amount and interest standard.
Last year, some banks also launched the activity of "You buy a house and I pay taxes", promising to pay 1% of the house purchase price within the price range (250,000 pounds). When you open the newspaper, you can often see the advertisements of large loans from banks. Under normal circumstances, there are two ceilings for bank loans in Britain, which are 4.5 times the annual household income (some are 5 times) and 80% of the overall house price. If your income is less than 20%, most big banks will refuse to lend you money. At this time, many loan intermediaries will tell you that you only need to pay a few hundred pounds (1 pound or 10 yuan) to help you find a bank willing to lend you money. Off-topic, when I was in America, I felt that banking services were exaggerated.
There is a cash commission for opening an account and a cash reward for introducing customers to open an account. Once a friend dragged us to another bank to open an account, and the account holder could get 100 USD in cash on the spot, and each introducer could get $50 USD when opening an account. Third, because we want to leave the United States, there are no additional conditions when we close the account. I've also seen people stir-fry popcorn for customers in the bank. The service in Britain can't reach that in the United States, and you can feel the fierce competition.
Third, housing inspection and loan insurance.
Slightly different from China, in Britain, buying a house requires a loan. Before getting a loan, housing testing is also essential. When applying for a house loan, two tests must be done: one is about the house, the land and the surrounding environment, and the other is about the house itself. For buyers, this kind of test is actually needed.
Buying a house is safe, even if there are invisible cracks in your wall, this institution can detect them. Each test is about 600 pounds. If you want to test the sword more carefully, you may have to pay a higher fee.
When applying for a loan, the applicant will also be told to buy two kinds of insurance: real estate insurance and personal insurance. Housing property insurance is to prevent losses caused by the destruction of houses in the event of major disasters; Personal insurance is a kind of compensation to protect buyers from personal injury or death after buying a house.
The two kinds of insurance premiums to be paid each month add up to 120. For banks, with such insurance, it can be guaranteed that the interests of banks will not be lost in the event of natural disasters or personal injury or death of property buyers. For property buyers, it also increases the risk prevention ability of life and property. I remember that when I bought a house in Shanghai in 2003, the loan required compulsory insurance. There seems to be no mandatory requirement now.