Cluster Family Office Blog

Banks can't get it in?

Recently we have seen how Pau Gasol managed to reach the top in the world of basketball. Watching news about this achievement, I happened to come across the film: «The whites don't know how to put it in«which is a basketball movie in which two hustlers try to pull off the heist of their lives.

Leaving aside the world of basketball, but staying with that suggestive film title and talking about scams, we have reached a comment made to this article by Marc Vidal which is not to be missed. After reading it, you will understand that the pun was inevitable.

«REAL SITUATION ( 15 days ago)....

A good and heroic friend of mine, who is a salesperson for her own real estate agency, manages to close a sale with, let's say, pedigree buyers. The house in question is a second home by the sea at a price of 300,000 €, considerably less than what was being asked for it a few years ago.

With all the documentation prepared and with peace of mind due to the good solvency of the buyers, they go to the bank to close the financing (Note: both buyers are civil servants with salaries above 3000 € each).

Once seated in the office of the director of a savings bank, the following happens:

The director goes through all the documentation and addresses the buyers and my friend with the following: «Gentlemen, this is a clear operation, a year ago it would have been signed with my eyes closed, but with the current situation I can only finance the 50% of the property: 150,000 €.... (long pause) ...Good, (addressing the buyers) you have another option, and that would be to choose one of the homes that this entity also has on the beachfront. In this case we would finance the 100% of the operation ....».»

Imagine my friend's anger (I will not reproduce the insults at this stage of the meeting). In her fucking face they wanted to take away a sale that may be the last one she will make before closing down her real estate agency.

Incidentally, the director had no qualms about admitting to my friend that this is the way things are, that the directors of this institution were given interesting bonuses for selling off assets and that, as their balance sheets were full of bricks, they had no choice. My friend, previously a close friend of the director, was no longer his friend, she was his competitor».»

This is not an isolated case, as professionally we have also seen similar situations lately. The fact is that we will soon be going into the bank to do a transaction and coming out with a small flat under one arm, some preference shares under the other, and our ID card in our mouths... lest they make a mistake in filling in the form. MiFID!...

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