They have decided to sell their newly finished home and pivot to the tiny house movement due to “cost of living and lack of freedom”.
“Humans are not meant to live this way,” she says. “It’s causing a cascade of issues, health issues, a mental health crisis and the fact that so many people aren’t having kids because they simply can’t afford it.”
18 Comments
CameronDev@programming.dev · 12 pts · 224d
House prices and cost of living is bad, but:
Is just naive.
Taleya@aussie.zone · 6 pts · 224d
fr. We bought in '22 and we padded out our budgeting by taking the monthly mortgage payments, rolling that up to the nearest thousand (eg: 2000 instead of 1700 [not actual numbers!!]) and putting that into our offset account per month. Because we fully expected to take it up the arse.
Consequently there's been no fuckin' change to the payments we throw in there.
CameronDev@programming.dev · 6 pts · 223d
I've been doing the same, and it really is the way to go. Haven't had much in the way of holidays or anything else expensive, but my house will be paid off by next year if all goes well.
Money sitting in the offset is also earning at the same rate as your mortgage interest rate, which is pretty good compared to term deposits or savings accounts.
Taleya@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 223d
Oh man, you get offset interest? We don't. But it has been satisfying watching it drop our tital loan for interest payments as it grows
CameronDev@programming.dev · 3 pts · 223d
No, but by the nature of offsetting your loans interest, it works out about the same. Every dollar in your offset is saving you from paying 5% on a dollar you owe on the loan.
To use silly numbers, if you have a loan at 5% for $100, and a savings account at 2%, at the end of a year, your down $5 on the loan, and up $2 on the savings. If instead you have $100 in your offset, your down $0 on the loan, so your offset has functionally earnt at 5%.
Tau@aussie.zone · 5 pts · 224d
I just exchanged contracts on an apartment so I'm not surprised they chose now to start cranking the rates back up again - I was waiting for something annoying to come along once I committed. Luckily I'm not a complete goose so I didn't borrow right to my max, should be able to handle a few rises without being overly stretched.
CameronDev@programming.dev · 3 pts · 223d
So it's all your fault... jerk.
DavidDoesLemmy@aussie.zone · 4 pts · 223d
There are some naive people in this article. One that says they raised interest rates before and it didn't fix inflation so why are they trying it again? 😭
CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 224d
Does Australia not have fixed rate mortgages?
ObscureOtter@piefed.ca · 8 pts · 224d
Most countries don't have long term fixed rate mortgages! They were first established in America by FDR in 1934 as part of the New Deal!
zero_gravitas@aussie.zone · 6 pts · 224d
Basically no. The vast majority are fixed rate for only the first 1 to 5 years.
More info here: https://lendingloop.com.au/what-is-the-longest-fixed-rate-mortgage-in-australia-and-how-can-it-benefit-you
Eyekaytee@aussie.zone · 4 pts · 224d
We do
https://www.queenslandcountry.bank/Banking/home-loans/
tbh this is not actually a real problem country wide, interest rates are at their average and you will always find people who got in over their head, this is just a sob story
brisk@aussie.zone · 4 pts · 224d
Australian "fixed rate" is just variable rate with a locked in period. The USA has fixed rate for the term of the loan as standard
dgriffith@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 223d
"We would never have bought..."
So they got large mortgages when interest rates were down near the lowest that they have ever been in this country, since Federation.
Then it's all surprised pikachu face when rates start to head back towards the long-term 5-6% average and they're suddenly paying 5K a month.
History. It's there for everyone to look at.
Nath@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 223d
Does anyone remember the early 90's? 17% interest rates. Imagine that on a $1,000,000 mortgage. $170k per year interest. That'd certainly be one way to bring house prices down. It'd destroy the economy and probably cause a pile of social issues as well, but yeah - it'd bring house prices down.
Cypher@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 222d
The banks would collapse with the number of loan defaults and would require a government bailout, it would be chaos
Eyekaytee@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 221d
I mean they don't have to jump from 3.85% to 17%! There's some other numbers in between
mortemtyrannis@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 222d
Given the current global political climate I think it’s fair to say most people are not students of history.