this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2024
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American here, I'm jealous of this element of your mortgage system
I feel ya. Sucks to live in a shithole
No, noting about our system is to be admired.
You have socalised mortgages through Fannie and Freddie and can budget knowing rates will be locked for decades because that's how they operate your banks have to do the same.
We have shitty WAY overpriced housing, some of the most expensive in the world in a small country (gazillons of acres but not many people) at the bottom of the planet ffs, we have poorly built housing stock with poor building codes (thin walls and slap giant HVACS on the side with no though to effiency) and cost a fortune to run
We only have privates mortgages with nearly all floating rates, we have a mostly protected cartel of lenders, the so called Big 4.
All our mortgages are full recourse, banks can persue you in perpetuity if u get I to trouble.
And 100s of other terrible things..
I hear ya, I know Canadian mortgage terms are renegotiated every couple years and that always sounded awful.
I was watching EEVBlog one day and Dave mentioned the offset account and I looked it up. That may be the only good part of your system. Here in America, the closest thing to that is a Home Equity Line of Credit, which is essentially a second mortgage but with not-so-good rates.