I am currently looking to invest in foreign property and i am concerned on the exchange rate i will need to pay. I am looking for advice from people that have used a safe and secure site (no high street banks) that fix the rate of exchange when buying abroad. Thank you
Why go outside well established banks for big transaction and risk other avenues for this? I would stick to the bank you have a relationship with. I am sure they can work something out.
a bank will be your best option here, and banks are safer compared to other otions you might have in mind.
I agree with the above two statements, for this type of transaction a bank would be preferred. I am not sure how much money you plan on moving, where to and what options you are considering but it seems that you would add plenty of risk outside a bank for a large sum of money.
Depends if you are a cash buyer or not, in my view. We built a house in Portugal and simply opened a Euro bank account in Portugal, set up a Portuguese mortgage, and handle all the payments through that account. I’d rather mortgage than tie up cash but then that’s just my preference - cashflow is king!
But anyway, I’d look at opening a bank account in the country in which you intend to invest. Owning any property will bring with it various ongoing costs and having a local bank account makes things a lot easier. Particularly if local trades want paying in cash at any point.
ST
I am not looking to use a high street bank as they only use spot exchange rates and i would like to know how much money is being debited from my account every month.
Depends if you’re looking to draw a frequent income from it. If you have a bank account in the local country/currency you can ship money across to the UK in lumps when you get a good exchange rate using Smart Money Exchange or similar. I certainly wouldn’t use the bank exchange desk.