First-time home buyers: how did you feel about getting a mortgage?

It was terrifying. So much more so than buying a car.

I thought of it as "locking in my rent". For me that helped as my rent kept going up.

Alternative: you can spend that same 15-25 years paying roughly the same monthly amount in rent at various places, and have exactly zero equity or assets to show for it at the end of the period. Zero zilch nada, the money is burned and gone forever.

Frame it in that sense and it's a no brainer.

In the current market though either try to get a variable rate mortgage or be prepared to refinance it in a few years if/when interest rates cool down. the current rates suuuuuck.

but I look at a mortgage and think “that’s 15 years I’ll spend paying back, at absolute minimum. Probably more like 25 years”

Yes! Probably more like 25 (or even 30 years)....at the same glorious fixed payment for that entire time! How many dozen times has your prior housing payment, rent, gone up? Now, it doesn't. The bank will never ask more from you on principal and interest in the future than it does on that very first mortgage statement.

When I bought my first house I was paying $800/month in rent at an apartment and the mortgage payment was $1000/month. I sold that house 17 years later with the last mortgage payment still being only $1000/month. I checked back on my old apartment to see what the rent was: $1400 for the same apartment I used to pay only $800/month for.

Also, you're not forced to keep that house you're buying for 25 or 30 years, but when you leave, its YOUR choice not the landlord's. When I sold my house I pocketed over $135k in profit because the housing value had gone up in that 17 years.

Glorious I tell ya!

Property generally increases in value while you pay it down.

My wife and I bought a $400k 3 bedroom flat near the university 8 years ago and we were both scared as fuck. paid $100k off it and just sold it for $600k

That $300k cheque we just used for the downpayment on building a "how do people afford these houses!?!" Thats going to cost $800k. But really our mortgage is only going to go up 20%

30 year mortgage at 52 and 1 heart attack... "The mortgage will outlive me!"

OTOH... locked in $2,000/mo. housing payment for 30 years... It's already paying off as the rent on our old place is $2,300/mo. now.

It's not a 15 (or 25) year commitment - you can sell the house any time and use the money to pay off the mortgage.

It was a no-brainer for me. I've got to live somewhere in either case so instead of paying rent I could just aswell use that money to pay off my mortage (in reality I'm paying less).

In general my attitude towards loans is that if you can't pay cash then you can't afford it but house is obviously an exception as no one has that kind of money saved up.

Haven't regreted a day.

I remembered my mom saying that by the end of the 30 year term the mortgage was her smallest housing expense, lower than the electric bill.

So yes, scary, but just remember that principal and interest part is going to seem smaller and smaller since it doesn't grow with inflation.

It's cheaper then rent. It raises my credit score. And i finally have ultimate authority on what i can do to decorate and maintain my home.

Honestly after over a decade of belonging I'd never be able to own my own place it was a huge relief to get a mortgage

It was scary. But my mortgage itself isnt too bad. The amortization schedule was scarier, as the first several years you're almost paying just interest. And you get to see just how much it costs over the total life of the loan.

But I like my house, I feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. I can enjoy doing the fixes myself, and cry when things are so expensive to repair. There are so many things I want to do, but can't afford to at the moment.

I am really enjoying getting my yard they way I want. And it's even nicer to have a place that my girlfriend and her daughter can move in.

The house has appreciated 10% in the last two years. And as inflation keeps happening, it devalues the loan. The money I owe is worth less and less and the property I own is worth more and more. At least in general, that's how it should work.

Property taxes are pricey, but I'm happy with paying them for what I get in the city and neighborhood I'm in.

I was stoked. No more land lord, and instead of paying your landlords retirement you’re paying into yours.

It's daunting, and it should be. A person can lose a lot of money and time by buying a lemon of a house.

That said, most people don't pay off their first house, because they move before the 15 or 30 years is up. And that's okay.

As Dave Ramsey says, "It's a house, not a marriage." Meaning, if it turns out a house doesn't suit you, sell it. You can't hurt it's feelings.

Before my first house, I didn't realize how much I would appreciate not having to get permission to fix / paint / change my own wall / door / shelf / window blinds.

I also didn't realize how much I would grow to despise having a Homeowners Association (HOA) up in my business.

It’s hard when you’re starting out, but think about it this way:

1. you have to live somewhere-that means rent or a mortgage.
2. rent goes to “the man”. So does most of your mortgage payment but you DO pay some of that to yourself. So when comparing the two you have to subtract that out.
3. you get a tax break on mortgage interest - so you have to take that out
4. the house is likely to appreciate in value - so any equity you build has to be taken out
5. this means that a substantially larger monthly mortgage payment might actually be equal to or even less than paying monthly rent.
6. rent goes up, nobody talks about this. Mortgages are fixed.
7. renting is forever. Eventually (if you’re not stupid with refinances) you’ll own your home and have zero payments.
8. in favor of renting - if something breaks in a house, you have to fix it. Renters just yell at their landlord.
9. even if you have a crappy interest rate now, you can always refinance in the future if and when rates come down.

Paying for your first mortgage can be daunting when just starting out, but it’s often cheaper than renting when considering the above points, the one exception being how much money you sink into repairs. (Don’t buy a money trap of a house, stay away from major fixer uppers). Eventually your salary will go up and your mortgage payment will be less and less of a burden.

Being in debt sucks, but I’ve felt paying rent sucks even more. So a mortgage ain’t so bad. That’s the way I see things - ymmv

My rent was about $200 bucks cheaper each month but I can sell this and my payments go towards something I own rather than something the landlord owns.

Plus I can upgrade something I own in ways I'm not going to do as a renter.

I was a bit nervous at the time but looking back it was absolutely the right decision. If you’ve always been a renter, you can’t know the sense of peace that comes with knowing your home belongs to you and you can’t be evicted by someone else’s whim. I wasn’t aware of how it was weighing on me until I was free of it. Yes, I have to pay a mortgage but only a few years later it is much cheaper than local rents that I’d otherwise be paying. Overall it’s a much better way to live as long as it lines up financially for you.

It’s weird. The numbers are so big and the dates are so far out there that none of it feels real. The fact that (assuming you fit their magic profile) some bank will accept your signature in return for hundreds of thousands of dollars is stranger still. I honestly wish we lived in a society where this sort of thing was NOT the norm. But if you live in the US, home ownership is one of the few mechanisms in place for us commoners to generate and/or pass on generational wealth (assuming that the whole system doesn’t collapse like the house of cards it probably is while you own the house).

Scary at first, I hare any sort of debt, but I’m about 7 years into it now and I seemed to have gotten in at just the right time, so I’m thankful at how relatively low my mortgage is. I’ve just gotten used to having the debt now. I don’t even think about it in the long-term, to be honest. As long as I can hit my rent every month, that’s all I’m worried about. Paying it off will happen eventually, right before I die I’d guess.

It’s a pain having to constantly maintain stuff, but it’s been an education learning how to fix shit up around the place, one youtube video at a time. So many helpful people out there recording themselves fixing every random-ass thing possible.

I bought 2.5 years ago so its still pretty fresh. It was very scary but I knew it was the right lifestyle choice for me. I had lived in my city for 5 years at the time and felt pretty confident (still do) that I want to stay local long term. Just like in all American cities, rents were rising fast.

It felt like I was overpaying at the time because of how much housing prices had risen the 5 years before, but a few months after closing I felt relieved and validated when interest rates jumped to 6%.

can I possibly plan that far in advance?

The good news is you don't need to. You can do the math to discover how many years you need to own a property in your local area to break even against renting: https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/rent-vs-buy-calculator

You can always sell a house you still have a mortgage on and use your equity to buy something else: https://www.zillow.com/learn/what-happens-when-you-sell-a-house-with-a-mortgage/ The downside to selling a house isn't the mortgage paperwork, its paying all the fees to brokers and banks to market the property and process the sale.

If your mortgage is less than your rent, do it.

Its generally a good move but people can oversell it. Taxes will go up even if the mortgage is fixed. You can't move easily if you need to go work someplace else or such. Upkeep is a thing and will cost. You can't easily drop your monthly nut if you lose your job or such. That being said my general rule of thumb is if you can afford a 20% down payment and 15 year fixed and its somewhere you would like to live you should do it. Get a 30 year but make payments like its a 15 year and if you get into a crunch make the normal payment. If all goes well you will be in good stead and if you have to sell you should come out ahead. If you can't do that much of a down payment then definitely think about it hard and I personally think if your doing a balloon or variable rate your asking for trouble.

I felt great about it, our monthly mortgage payment was a little less than we were paying in rent, and a portion of every payment was us building equity in our home rather than 100% going to a landlord. I feel even better now, as rents and home prices have skyrocketed where I live, and our monthly payment has only gone up about $300 over 9 years where renters are facing much steeper increases.

It all boils down to your monthly payment, and whether that price is right for you. You need a solid estimate on what your monthly payment will be, to include principal, interest, and escrow to cover taxes and insurance, and see how that amount feels to you moving forward, because it will stick with you.

I went about it a different way: bought the land, saved up (while on cheap rent), and then built a place. Obviously this depends on where you are, but it's not impossible. The UK is notoriously difficult to get things done like this due to regulations and the slow movement of bureaucracy, I've heard NZ is the same, but... it's definitely something I'm happy I did.

There isn't really much choice and people have been doing it for a long time including my parents so I just have to assume it's part of adulthood and accept it and try not to let it hang over my head.

Unless you make a lot of money or have help, you will probably have a mortgage if you want a house.

Bought my house in 2008 so I didn't think much my mortgage was low as fuck

Terrifying. I did mine nearly 30 years ago with nothing more than a couple of years of decent salary and the belief I'd be able to get a similar salary elsewhere if needed.

It worked out in the end. I'm in IT, and ended up working for a startup that floated and the monopoly moneyoptions became actual money, so was able to pay off my mortgage the year before COVID hit. It's made things immeasurably easier.

Not sure how things would be in the current situation of gigs, near-zero job security, etc. Really feel for those of you in that boat. It suuucks.

But life goes on. Roll the dice and trust that you can make the best of it, I think?

Edit: Ask yourself if you want to keep paying off someone else's mortgage and own nothing, or pay off your own.

I have the same feeling as you and I’m going through my first home purchase right now. I can’t imagine myself paying something for 30 years, and I’m in my late 30s. What’s keeping me assured is:

• Rent will just keep rising, and having a fixed payment that doesn’t go up for decades guaranteed is reassuring.

• I got a reasonable rate on my mortgage, but if rates go down, I can always refinance.

• As someone who prefers to pay in full on most things, paying an interest sucks. However, I can always pay additional on the principal every month when I have extra money, and eventually pay off the loan earlier and save money.

• I’m building equity. Renting is basically paying your landlord’s mortgage. You’re throwing money into something that isn’t yours. At least with a home, you’re investing in your own property.

• Climate change can change it, but real estate is historically the one asset that is almost guaranteed to appreciate. If there’s any major change in my life (moving, sickness, can’t afford it anymore, etc.), I can always sell.

I will say I don't really know about the emotional part so I will go into the financial and say that your country's currency will depreciate as time moves on. Therefore, you can either get a fixed rate mortgage now and convert it to a lower fixed rate mortgage later or get a variable rate mortgage now and convert it to a fixed rate later when rates decrease again. By doing this you lock in your price and the only thing that will change it is either in increase in taxes or insurance and even that won't increase it that much. So you have a very good idea of what your bill will be and you are shorting your country's fiat currency by buying something of value now and paying for it with depreciating currency over time.

Edit: As one buyer to another, I will say, watch out for electricity prices, though, because environmentally changing a 900-square-foot apartment or a 900-square-foot house are two totally different animals. I am not sure whether it's because all the other units in the building are doing roughly the same thing so the temperature change you have to make is less or if my landlords were subsidizing electricity but it was way cheaper to run electricity in an apartment than in a house. Like my electricity went up from an average of $30 at my apartments to an average of $120 at my house. As I said, my guess is that since everybody else in your building of apartments is wanting to keep their apartments cool or warm as well, this changes how much you personally spend to warm or cool your part of the building.

Edit 2: Another thought is that perhaps it's the attic in my house that caused a lot of that increase because yes my house is technically like a thousand square feet but that is the floor that you can live on not including the attic which would add more to that total if it were included