I don't know how real estate works in the rest of the world, but in the US, you're typically getting a mortgage when you're purchasing a home, and the bank is the one that truly owns it, until you pay that mortgage off. Does this process work different wherever you are?
For our home owners out there, do you have a mortgage? If you don't, did you have one and pay it off?
If you aren't a home owner, are you planning on purchasing a home and getting a mortgage soon?
Took me a long time to finally decide to purchase a house, but last year with the interest rates being so long I had to take advantage of that. I do make an extra 2 payments a year to take my 30 yr mortgage down to 15.
I'm in the US. We got our very first mortgage over 30 years ago and the interest rate was 10%! We refinanced when the rates dropped 2 points, and then moved to another house and the rates were a lot lower. During those years our mortgage was constantly being sold to other companies which we were unhappy about but the only thing you can do is refinance.
We are in our 3rd house and paid off the mortgage a few years ago after my husband inherited some of his mother's investments when she passed. It was the best plan for us because we weren't reaping the benefits anymore that we did previously on or taxes where we could deduct the interest.
My husband & I bought this newest house with cash. We are older & have saved up a lot. We don't do credit cards & we pay cash for bigger purchases such as vehicles. It's honestly nice being debt free.
I bought my first property in the UK during the late 70s/early 80s just before the mortgage rate went up from around 4.5% to 16% in a few short months. Home owners today think they have it hard with the current rate at around 3.5% 🙄
I'm mortgage free but I've had a number of mortgages over the years and there's a couple of things that I've learned and benefited from greatly. The first is I learnt to calculate my own mortgage figures. Every mortgage I've had has been miscalculated to some degree in the lender's favor and the nature of the calculation used means that even the tiniest of errors can cost you dearly over the term.
The second thing I did which saved me literally tens of thousands was to pay an additional 10% per year, the most I could pay without penalty. The value of doing this at the beginning of a term is huge but it diminishes substantially as you reach the end of the term.
