this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
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I'm 35, and if you squint a bit at the mortgage, I "own" home. With my partner. And we'll be paying it off for another 27 years. And we're the lucky ones of this generation.
Buying a home with saving, fucking lol
Well, the good news is if you have a fixed rate mortgage the crushing amount of incoming inflation may cut that back to like 15-20 years!
I'm a couple years older than you, but my partner and I feel incredibly lucky to own a home as well. We bought an abandoned property back in 09' for 35k and have spent the last ten years fixing it up. If I wasn't able to borrow 20k from USAA back then, I don't think I'd even be able to afford the rent in my neighborhood nowadays.
Once I hit my 40s, massive home diy projects have either become necessities (too expensive to hire out), pipe dreams, or like PA DOT working on route 202 in my youth (never ending with incremental steps that never improve the experience of driving). The energy loss is off the hook, and I’m not a flubbynutter.
Seriously. Our house is 175 years old and hadn't had much work done to it since the last major renovation in the 1920s. People ask me if I renovated it myself. I laugh and explain that no, a crew of full time professional carpenters, roofers, masons, demo experts, plumbers, electricians, plasterers, and painters spent over a year on it. I just don't think anyone has any concept of how much work is involved in real renovation.
Fortunately interest rates stated low enough that I could keep borrowing more and more and more money to pay all those people. But now I'm trapped and can never sell.
Pay off over 15 years if you can or you'll pay about double the total value just from interest.
I do like that theory. Unfortunately my wallet disagrees with it. Thankfully we've locked it in for 2.2% for 20 year, and semi-realistically we should be able to pay it off before that runs out. But the official period is 30 years, since that's the legal maximum.
Gotcha. Well consider adding a couple hundred bucks towards principle each month--it would still make a gigantic impact over the term of the loan.