• Scientist

  • Beer Drinker

  • Advocate for distributed / user-supported communities and media

I wish that I was skinnier but I love beverages.

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  • 49 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • I’m sorry to be pedantic but this is a pet peeve of mine. If you bought a house you would not have any mortgage payment. You (and everyone else usually) are talking about financing a house.

    Maybe I’m the crazy one but when I buy something I like to look at the total amount that I’m paying for it.
    If I wanted a house listed for $300,000 5-years ago and I wanted to finance it, the rate might have been 3% so the total amount I would be paying would be $455,332.36 over 30yrs. Therefore I would only finance if I thought ~$450,000 was a fair price. If I thought the house was only worth $300,000 then I would need to pay in cash.

    Today rates are at 7% so a house listed at $300,000 actually costs $718,526.69 when financed. Do I think the houses I see listed for $300,000 are worth over $700,000? No. Do I have more than $300,000 needed to afford to pay in cash? Also no. Therefore, I’m not buying.
    *These calculations are ignoring the down payment but the principle is still valid.
















  • I’m not saying mortgages should completely go away. I’m sure a mortgage is the right decision for many people’s situations. It’s just the way that people talk about buying a house, a mortgage seems to be assumed. If it wasn’t just assumed then maybe people would put more thought into whether they want to save for a larger down payment (or the full price) or whether they want to pay $750,000 for a $400,000 house.
    I don’t know, maybe people see these numbers and think its a great deal. All I see is a bank making a huge amount of money from me that I would rather keep for myself. Also, if people stopped stretching their budget to the absolute limit with financing nonsense (3% down, variable rate loans, rate buydowns), in aggregate there would be less demand for houses at these high prices and sellers would have to start accepting lower offers.



  • That’s a good point. But the US is not offering this same path to citizenship to anyone willing to buy a house in rural Alabama. I assumed these visa programs were aimed at attracting wealthy foreigners which is why the US has something similar for anyone willing to invest $800K in a commercial enterprise. That’s why I was curious if $263K is considered relatively wealthy in Greece and could buy a house even in desirable areas. The fact that apparently this is not the case makes the goals of this program unclear.