• MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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    9 months ago

    Not entirely true. I’m what they call a deadbeat (meaning I pay off my cards in full every month and have been doing so for the past 10 years, making them $0 profit), and I have a 800 score.

    I think the more correct way to think about it is that it’s an estimate of your profit potential. What everyone tells you to do with a score this high is to buy a house because you qualify for the best mortgage interest rates. But of course then they’ll have me on the hook for the next 30 years, and they stand to make in excess of $100k in profit.

      • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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        9 months ago

        It’s actually far worse than that. If you get $400k loan at the current rate and pay it off over 30 years, you’ll end up paying over 1.5x times the principal in interest. Over the lifetime of the loan, a $500k home will cost you over $1M.

        (from mortgagecalculator.org)

        • trafficnab@lemmy.ca
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          9 months ago

          Wait why are the banks investing in home loans when instead investing that money into the stock market (should?) yield greater returns over the course of the loan period (even at a very conservative 5% yearly compounding interest, $400,000 turns into $1.7M over the course of 30 years)

          • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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            9 months ago

            Mortgages are fixed income. Stock market returns are variable and therefore riskier. One bad year can wipe out multiple years of gains. Meanwhile, the money you collect as interest has already been paid, and as you can see from the calculator, the interest is front loaded, meaning the majority of it is paid at the beginning of the loan. So even with the probability of a default wiping out the remainder that’s owed, it’s still a much safer investment.

          • Phoenix3875@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Mortgages are “secured debt”, meaning that they are backed by a collateral (in this case, the house). If the person defaults, the bank can seize the house. The risk is lower, and thus even when the interest rate is lower, the bank is willing to take it.

        • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          jeez, my apartment is fixed at 1% for 10 years, my house for some reason I didn’t think about fixing it for longer and it’s 1% for only 5 years, but even now that mortgages are peaking in my country they don’t go over 6%