Pollish: % interest on mortgage?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Triggered by some discussion in class but I promise it’s not homework. Could you please state:

  1. Your location.
  2. The %APR on your mortgage.
  3. % of the house’s value you put down.
  4. What kind of outstanding loans and other credit history did you have when you got the mortgage.
  5. Any other info which you believe may have affected your mortgage’s conditions or about the conditions themselves.

I’m not trying to get a debate going (wrong forum!), just data. Thank you!

  1. Spain.
  2. 1.96%
  3. 20%
  4. No outstanding loans, no bankruptcies, no credit history except for “has a credit card, pays in full every month; has had three savings accounts, two of which are closed and none of them has ever held a negative balance”.
  5. I was rejected by another bank due to my employment history. Some banks require you to be employed (and will not make loans to self-employed people at all); this one required people to have been in their current job for a minimum of two years. Being a consultant and “stable employment” aren’t two expressions you see together often.
    The bank where I got the mortgage is not very important in my area (there are other locations where it’s huge), so they were more likely to give me better conditions. My only active savings account was with them. I got lower APR for getting the associated life insurance through an insurance company they own, and for getting my salary paid there. I don’t get my salary there any more (I opened an account in a bank with a greater international presence when I became self-employed) but the discount holds. My mortgage had an initial period of 2 years with a fixed APR, now it’s variable.
2
  1. Barackington, DC
  2. Something like 5.7%
  3. Something like 10%
  4. Paid off credit card balances consistently, had about $3 grand left on a car loan
  5. I had to get private mortgage insurance for the first three years of the loan because I didn’t have 20% downpayment. The value of the house rose quite rapidly, so I got rid of PMI after a reappraisal. This has saved me some significant money, on the order of $150 a month. (I can’t recall the precise figure.)
3
  1. Missouri, USA
  2. 5.875%
  3. ~10-11%
  4. Student loans. No other major debts. Great credit history.
  5. Obtained a government grant for reimbursement of downpayment after a set period of homeownership.
    1.96%? That’s unheard of in the states.
4
  1. USA, Oklahoma
  2. 5.5%
  3. Approx. 5%
  4. Between my wife and myself: 2 car loans totaling about $8,000 (0.9% and 5.4%), 2 student loans totaling about $100,000 (1.9% and 3%), numerous credit cars with combined limits more than $250,000, but no outstanding balances. Perfect repayment records, more than 15 years credit history.
  5. Dual income household. We were approved for conventional 30 year mortgage up to twice as big as we wanted, finally got an FHA (government-backed loan with a lower rate). Housing prices here are considerably below the US average, and credit scores are typically lower as well.
5
  1. Outskirts of Houston, Texas
  2. 4.875
  3. 20%
  4. Very little debt other than previous mortgage. Outstanding credit.
  5. Dual income, long employment history, didn’t need PMI, good reserves, weren’t borrowing over 430 or wherever it goes to prime.
6
  1. USA, Texas
  2. 5% fixed
  3. 10% down
  4. No outstanding debts, not a whole lot of credit history, but what we had was good.
  5. It was 2003, they were giving mortgages away. Texas also has fairly reasonable housing costs, so we were only borrowing 115K, which was less than twice our household income at the time. We went through a credit union.
7
  1. Pittsburgh, PA, USA
  2. 6.75%
  3. 20%
  4. Student loans, so I owed maybe $5,000.
  5. Not a college grad, credit score close to 700, no-doc loan. I worked near minimum wage then, so it might be because of that.
8
  1. Orange County, CA
  2. 4.375% on a 15 year note.
  3. Re-Fi on 50% of the house value.
  4. $30k in grad school debt at 1.75%. Solid credit history.
  5. Dual income. I was in my new job for only 9 months, but my wife has been with the same employer for 10 years. Odd covenants on our property slowed things down a bit, but the broker is a friend from church and he was able to navigate the wilds of Wells Fargo.
9
  1. New York City
  2. 5.75% fixed, 30-year note. It’s since been paid off.
  3. 50% downpayment
  4. No debt
  5. Excellent credit score from always paying my credit cards on-time (with no balance).
10
  1. Suburbs of Boston, MA
  2. 4.875 30-year fixed rate
  3. 55%
  4. No other debt. Credit scores ranging from 790 to 810.
  5. We have great credit and enough income to borrow twice what we did.
11
  1. USA - Tennessee
  2. 4.25% for 15 years
  3. 10% down
  4. Mediocre credit, not much debt.
  5. Bought my house at auction and had 30 days to find fanancing after the fact.

StG

12
  1. Tampa, Florida
  2. 6.875% - actual rate, not APR. 30 year fixed
  3. 20% or more (not sure)
  4. Very good to excellent credit history
  5. Was self-employed for a while when we first got the house, so had to take a horrible loan. Then refinanced into what was then a decent fixed rate because I thought the housing market would crash soon. Then it did and my initial 20% is gone so not so easy to refinance to a more reasonable rate.
13
  1. SE Ohio
  2. 4.25%
  3. 30%
  4. No outstanding debt. Credit cards only.
  5. It was my parents’ bank. I think they would have given a loan to any of my siblings and me if we walked in with no job, a boatload of debt, and no plan to pay any of it off.
14
  1. Between Cleveland and Akron, OH, US
  2. 6%
  3. 10%
  4. Good credit history from credit cards, $0 credit card balance, about $7k left on a car loan.
  5. I bought my house right at the end of the boom and, had the loan-ee been anyone but me this deal probably would have gone to shit for the bank. I had a “no doc” loan because I own my own business and had a sort of iffy income history. I also have an interest-only 10/1 ARM…meaning I pay interest only for 10 years and then my rate adjusts. Of course, I’ve been paying extra principle since the beginning and it’s worked out well for me. I have 5 more years before my rate adjusts - hopefully plenty of time to get a new 30-year-fixed-rate mortgage.
15

I might suggest adding the term of the mortgage and whether or not it’s a fixed rate to get more useful data.

16
  1. MA, north of Boston
  2. 4.875% 30 yr. fixed
  3. 35%ish
  4. It was refinance last year. Had been mortgage paying homeowners for 13 years at that point, 1 active car loan, no cc debt, great credit scores.
  5. Between paying down principal and increasing jumbo limit, this refi took us from a jumbo to a conforming loan, which apparently got us another 0.25% drop in the interest rate.
17
  1. USA - Maine
  2. 4.875 for 30 years (I paid 2.25 points to get that rate, otherwise I think it would have been 5 and change)
  3. 20% down
  4. Excellent credit - I’ve paid off three car loans, and have several credit cards (I only use three consistently) that very rarely carry a balance but I’ve never had a home loan before.
  5. I went through USAA who deals exclusively with military. Frankly, I was amazed at the amount of money they were willing to loan me. I guess it was because I don’t have any kids or associated expenses.
18

Prague, Czech Republic:
5.8%, 20 years, resetting every 2 years (we’ll pay it off next year).
apx. 35%
Excellent credit - never made a late payment.
Not easy as a foreigner, and only had about 3 or 4 banks willing to lend to such people.

19
  1. Hamilton, Ontario (Canada).
  2. Variable/Prime - 0.35%, 25 years. Currently 1.9%, as prime for the banks is 2.25% right now. We took out our mortgage just before everything went to crap. Prime minus anything is pretty much unheard of right now.
  3. 20%.
  4. We had a HELOC on our previous home which was paid off when we sold. Excellent credit history from credit cards. No other debt (had two old, paid off, cars at the time).
  5. I work “occasional part time” at my job, so my income is variable. They took the average of the past three years as my income.
20
  1. Seattle
  2. Currently, 2.5% 25year ARM (pegged to 2% above the 10-year T-bill. We’re making out like bandits!)
  3. 40%
  4. CCs paid off every month. 10 years of student loans paid back monthly. The worst thing on our credit history was a $40 electrical bill from 5 years earlier that went to a collection agency after we moved out that we paid immediately upon contact from collection agency.
  5. We also demonstrated that we could pay the full cost of the house if we liquidated all assets.