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[–] 161 points 1 year ago (45 children)

Average age of a first time homebuyer is now over 40. Even at a reasonable interest rate, most buyers would die before they actually own the house.

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  • [–] 144 points 1 year ago (3 children)
  • [–] 43 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    Can't pass it on to your kids when the bank forecloses on it

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  • [–] 22 points 1 year ago (26 children)

    I know someone living in the Netherlands (home of Lemmy.world!) that told me they had interest only mortgages that didn't pay toward the principal and that this was common over there. It seems like these new 50 year mortgages in the USA are a step going that same way. Anyone from that area confirm this?

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  • [–] 38 points 1 year ago* (3 children)

    At that point, the bank is buying the house, they're just renting it to you for a very cheap rate, with the stipulation that you're responsible for all of the maintenance and etc. The "purchase" is just you entering into a long-term rental agreement.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago

    There is still some optionality like maybe you get a windfall from a boomer dying and you can pay the principal. Or in 30 years your currency devalues to the point you can afford the principal.

    Anyway it all feels like fool's hope. Situation is fucked.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago

    It an overall bad deal in my mind, but there are some upsides (not enough for me to take it). Assuming you get a fixed rate, you lock in your payment and your "rent"/mortgage will decline over time just from inflation eating away at it. I think most folks would love to have their rent decline by 3% every year. This effectively does that.

    Additionally, if you are the homeowner instead of the renter, if the real estate increases in value, when you sell, you pocket the increase. There's nothing like that in renting.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

    I'm Dutch, just bought a home, and I've never heard of that.

    Edit: I think that is called an "aflossingsvrije" mortage, banks stopped providing those after 2008 for obvious reasons.

    Eidt 2: Apparently it still exists, but can no longer be used to finance an entire house. From my research it is often still possible for up to 50% of a house's value. It was also not an option in the way we bought our house.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Congratulations on your new home!

    Thanks for providing that info on the "afloasingsvrije" mortgages. It was a few years before 2008 when she bought, so that tracks with what you're reporting.

    Here in the USA we have fixed rate mortgages, where you have a single fixed interest rate for the entire length of the mortgage, but I know that not all countries have that. From what I understand in Canada the rates fluctuate during the mortgage where you can get something like fixed for 5 years (maybe 10?) but then the rate can increase on the existing mortgage you've already got.

    How does the Dutch system work? Fixed for life of mortgage? Continuously variable? Fixed for a time like Canada? Something else?

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    We have different types of mortages, but most (maybe all, at least the most common types) have a fixed rate over 30 years. Maybe variable rates exist, but they are at least very uncommon. Shorter mortages are also possible I think but are of course very expensive.

    One weird thing we have is that part of the interest you pay is tax deductible. (Progressive parties are i.m.o. rightfully trying to abolish this subsidy for the owning class, but I digress.) for this reason there is a type of mortage where you first only pay the interest, and slowly start paying off more and more of the mortage, which means your net mortage fee slowly increases over time, which is nice if you expect your income to increase over those decades.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    One weird thing we have is that part of the interest you pay is tax deductible.

    This matches the USA system for mortgages.

    for this reason there is a type of mortage where you first only pay the interest, and slowly start paying off more and more of the mortage, which means your net mortage fee slowly increases over time, which is nice if you expect your income to increase over those decades.

    This sounds new to me. In the USA we do have amortized mortgages so a very high percentage of the monthly payment is interest with little going to principal. Over time that relationship flips where you're paying more principal that interest. However, in our system the mortgage payment stays the same, only how much of that fixed payment goes to interest vs principal changes.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Dutchie here, nope. We are paying both principal and interest. Plus when i to it out, my mortgage was 102% of my home's value. And as it stands, the bank owns my ass exactly until I retire 🤷‍♂️

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Not sure if this is what they were talking about, but balloon mortgages are a thing here too. I can’t ever imagine considering one, but they exist.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Balloon mortgages would be good in only two situations:

    • you're not planning on living in the house very long, so you likely exit before the balloon payments hit.
    • you believe interest rates will decline in the next few years and you can refinance to a fixed low rate

    I don't ever see myself using a Balloon mortgage. Worse, they are frequently sold via predetory lending methods. Unsavvy buyers are convinced to take a balloon mortgage not understanding the payments will rise dramatically in the years ahead. This can lead to eventual foreclosure when the owners can service the higher payments.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    If you’re not planning to live there long, I don’t think you shouldn’t be buying; that’s one of the few times I’d choose to rent. I guess maybe if home prices are rising then you can accrue some equity, but then you risk buying at the top of the market. I genuinely how it would compare to a fixed rate mortgage though.

    If you think interest rates are going to decline, you can easily refinance a fixed rate mortgage as well. I don’t see any benefit in that scenario, but there’s a downside in that if rates don’t go down you still have that balloon payment to worry about, and if you don’t qualify for a traditional mortgage, you’re really in a bind.

    Maybe if you’re flipping a house it makes sense, especially if you want to minimize cash outflow. Otherwise, there are so many more downsides that are much more severe than the mild upsides that you might gain. Perhaps there’s a few niche applications that I haven’t considered though.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (4 children)

    How would that work, even on paper? Not being a dick, just don't understand. So it's literally just, "you can never own this property fully?"

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    How would that work, even on paper? Not being a dick, just don’t understand. So it’s literally just, “you can never own this property fully?”

    Yes. The tradeoff is you have a property that is in your name (with a bank note attached), and if the property increases in value during the time you own it, when you sell, you pocket the difference. If you have a fixed interest rate, it also caps the growth of your payment for housing for the entire time you live there. There's quite a bit of value in that.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    UK has even worse, buy to let. Interest only with the intent of renting it out. So you profit on the rents and profit on the house going up in value. Obviously you vote for governments that will lead to an increase in house prices too. Oh yeah most of government is made up of parasites landlords too.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Sorry, my brain is struggling. How is this different from the U.S., for example? Isn't it the same? If you buy, the only way to make money is to improve or rent out to someone even more desperate...?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Normally you also make payments towards the principal and build equity. As I understand, most of these buy to let loans actually only have you pay interest so you'll never own the property. If the value even after 20 or 30 years drops below the initial value, you're in the negative and need to pay up the difference if you can't make payments anymore. Whereas with a normal mortgage once you've paid it off, fluctuating values can't put you in severe financial trouble.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (4 children)
  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    you....realize thats not only where this Lemmy Community is...but also your user account, right?

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Nothing is stopping you from moving to another Lemmy server and blocking .world entirely. You have to find some value here if you haven't done that already. If you hate it so much why are you still here and posting instead of on another server with other non-Lemmy.world communities?

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    The year I turned 40, was the year I moved into my first non-rental property.

    I'm living proof that shit is fucked up

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I'm turning 40 in a few days. I finally moved into a crazy beat-up fixer-upper/possible crime scene about 3 weeks ago.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Welcome to the club. Were you able to afford the fixer upper on your own, or did you need to split the financial burden with another person?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I found a rare rent-to-own locally. So it's in my name and otherwise the same as buying, except the original owner is the bank. As long as I stay 2-3 years, I come out ahead if viewed as a rental. If I make it 20 (or can get ahead/clever in various ways), I own it outright/maybe make a little bit.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I'm a couple of years older and JUST escaped renting. It's ridiculous!

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Welcome to the club.

    What percentage of your income now goes to your mortgage payment? For me, it's like 110%... But I have help, so my share is only like 35%

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    And then their kids keep paying until they die and still haven't paid it off, even though they'll have paid twice the original amount by that point. Whoever came up with this bullshit is probably right now buying their third yacht from the bonus.

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  • [+] 88 points 1 year ago (15 children)
  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    At least cars are considered a valid housing choice these days, which is why car prices are rising.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Honestly, I thought it is actually not allowed in a lot of states to live in your car.

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  • Well, it was, until recently. Trump cracked down on a lot of homelessness laws around the country. Laws like, you can't even stay on your family members driveway any more!! Its fucked out there. Just youtube executive order against vanlife

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (10 children)

    Like stocks, and art, they're only as valuable as what people will pay for them.

    If you want a shelter, you can use sticks and leaves in the forest and build something halfway decent at least. If you want a building to call your home, pay up dickhead.

    Meanwhile, people who should be buying are renting, people who should be renting are in airbnbs or living in their cars, and the family dwellings are owned either by some jerkwad who wanted an income property, or a corporation that just felt like owning more land because they could.

    I'm so proud of our society. Such progress! Capitalism is great!

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    If you want a shelter, you can use sticks and leaves in the forest and build something halfway decent at least.

    Wrong, someone owns the forest and your encampment will be destroyed upon discovery.

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  • [+] 1 point 1 year ago (5 children)
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Yeah, the market only cares about the maximum that people will pay for it. You're not offering the maximum, so you're not important enough for the market forces to care about.

    I'm not either, so.... We're in this boat together. You want to row on the starboard side? Or port?

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  • [+] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)
  • [–] 58 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    A 50 year mortgage will be a lot like renting. Because the bank will own your shit until you die.

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  • [–] 29 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I can't believe this is real.

    Home ownership out of reach? No problem, just never own a home. Bing bang boom.

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  • Headline: Save 200 dollars a month with a 50 year mortgage over a 30 year!

    Subtext: ... and end up paying double the interest to us for the benefit, and die before your loan is paid off so we get to take the house back from your corpse, sell it on the cheap to a corporate real-estate investment firm (that we have stock in) for just enough to cover the remaining mortgage balance. They'll turn your multi-generational family home into a shitty rental property or leave it empty to keep the rest of their rents high and your children get nothing cuz fuck em!

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  • [–] 22 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    I would rather eat my own children than sell them out to the future the banks have in mind.

    These people have abandoned humanity.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (10 children)

    Is this an actual thing in the us? We don’t have 50 year mortgages in Denmark but I can get a 30 year fixed interest at 3.5%

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  • [–] 26 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    trump just announced 50 year mortgages

    this is so awesome I can't wait to be in debt my entire life

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    But are they really 17% interest rate?

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago

    No, it's just some exaggeration to make it even more ridiculous. As if 50 years isn't enough.

    What's really awful is when you see how little the payment lowers between a 30yr and 50yr mortgage with current rates. It's not nearly as big a difference as you'd think.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago*

    No, but our Treasury Secretary recently floated the idea so it might become a thing soon. I believe there are already some 40-year mortgages, but they're rare and non-standard. The 30-year mortgage has been an American institution since it was standardized under FDR's New Deal in the 1930s.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Anybody who believes a 50 year mortgage is a good idea, does not understand discount rates....

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Discount rates are one of my favorite things. But pretend I'm one of those dumbasses who didn't do the reading...? What would you say to really put those fuckers in their place!?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    The further in the future profits are, the less they are worth today. As in getting $1000 today is better, then getting a promise of being paid $1000 in a decade. After all if you got the $1000 today you could have invested it and got a return on it. So lets say you know you can get a return of a rate of 5%. The $1000 today invested over a decade would be $1000 * 1.0510 = $1628.89 in a decade. You can also use it the other way around, to estimate what the $1000 is worth in the future. As in X * 1.0510 = $1000 -> X =$613.91 That rate of return is called the discount rate.

    The issue with getting money in 50 years is that it ends up being nearly nothing today. So it is just a horrible idea.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    But we're not talking about getting money in the future. We're talking about getting full ownership of a house in the future, while being able to live in it for the full 50 years that it is being paid off.

    The bank also isn't talking about getting money in the future, they're getting a steady revenue stream for 50 years.

    So, I don't see how this really applies to 50 year mortgages.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Yes we are. In a mortgage the bank gives you the money today, for the promise of payments in the future. So for a bank far out payments are nearly worthless today. So they will not give you better conditions for a 50year mortgage compared to a 25year one.

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