One application. Every bank that lends on a house.

Prime puts the same home loan application in front of Absa, Standard Bank, FNB, Nedbank and Investec, then argues the rate. It costs you nothing — the bank that wins pays us.

See what you qualify for

What we do

Bond origination, from the offer to purchase to the day it registers at the Deeds Office. There is no charge to you at any point along the way.

All five banks, one form

Absa, Standard Bank, FNB, Nedbank and Investec get the same pack on the same morning. You sign once. We compare what comes back on rate, term, initiation fee and whether the bond registers at 100% or 105%.

Nine working days, usually

That is our median from a complete pack to the first approval in writing. Incomplete packs take three weeks, which is why we are pedantic about payslips before anything gets submitted anywhere.

You pay us nothing

The bank that wins your bond pays our commission. No fee to you, no fee if you are declined, and no fee if you end up taking the offer your own bank made you instead of ours.

One person, start to registration

The consultant who takes your application is the one who phones when the attorney needs your FICA documents. No call centre, no reference number, and a mobile that still works after five.

What happens after you send the form

You send us four things and nothing else: three months of payslips, three months of bank statements, your ID and the offer to purchase. Self-employed, it is two years of financials and six months of statements instead. We read the affordability and the credit record before anything goes anywhere, and if the file is going to be declined we say so that day rather than putting four rejections on your record. The pack then goes to all five banks on the same morning, in your name. Grants come back over the next week or two, each with its own rate, term, initiation fee and conditions. We set them side by side on one page, in rand, and show what the difference actually costs you over twenty years — because a bank offering 105% finance at prime plus a half is not cheaper than one that wants a deposit. Once you accept a grant, that bank instructs its attorney and we stay on the file until the bond registers. In Cape Town that is another six to ten weeks, and most of the delay is rates clearance and the seller's bond cancellation rather than anything the bank is doing.

R2.4bn

Bonds registered for clients since 2011

94%

Of complete files approved by at least one bank

Prime −0.65%

Average rate granted on our files this year

9 days

Median, complete pack to first written approval

Two consultants and a clerk, above the pharmacy in Durbanville

Prime is Ilze Fourie and Sipho Dlamini, with Rushda Adams keeping the conveyancing files moving. Ilze wrote home loans at a bank in Bellville for nine years and knows exactly which line on a payslip the credit scorer reads. Sipho came off the other side of it, doing bond registrations at an attorney in the city for six. We are not a franchise and no bank pays us more than another. Originator commission is the same percentage whichever one grants the bond, which is the only honest reason we can say we do not mind which you take. When we push you towards a particular grant it is because of the rate or the conditions, and we will put that arithmetic in writing. We take on about fifteen applications a month. That is what three people can carry while still answering the phone on a Saturday, and we would rather turn work away than let your file sit in a queue while a transfer date runs down.

What do you qualify for?

The two-minute version, no documents yet. We answer weekdays 08:00 to 17:00 from the Durbanville office, and on Saturday mornings when an offer is running out of time. 021 914 3080.

Clients

Our own bank came back at prime plus 0.4. Ilze had two other grants on her desk by the Friday and we signed at prime less 0.6. Same house, same deposit, about R1 900 a month less.

Wesley & Nadia Titus · Brackenfell

First-time buyers, no deposit, and I was sure we would be laughed at. Three of the five said yes. Sipho explained why we should take the one that was not the cheapest, and he was right about the conditions.

Zanele Mokoena · Kuils River

I am self-employed and every bank wants something different from you. Prime asked me for one set of documents, sorted the rest out between themselves, and I never had to explain my business twice.

Riaan Steyn · Somerset West

Rushda phoned me every Tuesday for eleven weeks until the bond registered. She chased the rates clearance herself when the municipality mislaid it. I still do not know how she got it out of them.

Fatima Ebrahim · Athlone

They told us on the first call to wait four months and clear a store account first. It cost them a commission and it got us a better rate, which is why I sent them my sister in September.

Grant Petersen · Table View

Switched an existing bond over. The saving was smaller than they had hoped and they said so up front instead of talking it up. Still worth doing, and it took six weeks end to end.

Thabo Ngcobo · Milnerton

Offer to purchase signed? Phone us before you sign the bank's forms.

021 914 3080

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