I doubt it’d fix the housing crisis here, but it would certainly help. I’m not sure how many people would warm up to it, though. A large part of our problem is that there isn’t any affordable housing. The fact the average house cost in 2023 was around $450,000 is insane, especially given the median income in the US was roughly $75,000 in 2022.
So yes, being able to buy back our mortgage’s bonds at their market value may be a boon, but the fact that the Dane’s require at least 20% down for their system to work would be a nonstarter for so many people. Roughly 65% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. A small minority of people are going to have the ~$80,000 to required to put down on a $450,000 house. Ultimately, turning housing into such a profitable investment option has led us to this situation, as having fewer houses means the existing houses are worth more and will only increase in value, making it a much more attractive investment than building new housing en masse.
require at least 20% down for their system to work would be a nonstarter for so many people.
That’s not really how it works, though. You actually only have a to put down 5 percent or more in Denmark. Much like the US.
The difference is that, in Denmark, the mortgage (the loan with the covered bond) can only finance 80 percent of the value, the rest can be financed by a regular bank loan. So 80 percent mortgage and 15 percent bank loan.
I was going off of the article, which stated that 20% is required in Denmark. Seems that they didn’t specify that well, so I apologize for the ignorance.
No worries. The article isn’t clear on that.
The point of requiring 20% is to suppress demand, pushing prices down toward affordability.
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I’ve been found out! I didn’t read the article 😂
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A much bigger impact would have tearing down all the stupid parking spaces and changing zoning regulations to build higher density housing. The urban sprawl is unsustainable long term.
Housing was out of reach for many Americans before interest rates went up. I don’t think allowing an escape to mortgage rate lock-in is a bad idea, but state and municipal funding and financing and zoning reform would make more of a difference in the housing market.
Or probably just do both.
Yes please!
This sounds good, but I don’t fully grasp the covered loan aspect. So the bank is required to sell a matching bond on the open market. What’s the difference between the rate on mortgage and the rate on the on bond? Is it also matched or just the principal? Does that make the interest a wash for the bank, so that their primary motivator is fee collection?
Here’s an in-depth comparison between the US and Danish mortgage models. It’s a PDF from the NY Fed:
We don’t have enough homes we are millions of homes short. There is no solution until building goes into over drive.
The number of empty houses in North America is absurd. Zoning and regulatory structure are as much an issue as construction.
You’re right but that’s not the problem attempting to be addressed with Denmark’s system.
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Maybe, but that doesn’t really have anything to do with what the article is covering.
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The nice thing about owning a home is that you actually build up your saving. If you at some point get in hot waters you can sell your home to get some backup cash.
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as a renter you aren’t responsible for upkeep/changes to the home
Nobody likes big unexpected costs. That’s why landlords tend to offload the risk to PMCs, warranties, and insurance.
And then your rent pays for the monthly costs of all of that.
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That would be true of landlords didn’t also know that and, in turn, redline rent to the maximum tenants can possibly pay.
I don’t know about the US specifically, but In Canada, investors big and small have bought up all the rental stock and rents are now maxed out beyond what many people can pay.
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As a boomer, one of the biggest “flaws” I see in this irl, is that people won’t sell their shit, and their dreams die in their sleep, with them.
Yea, that’s true. But I would say that is still better then forking over money into the rent furnace each month right?
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It must be different in different places. I went from a renter in one area, to an owner in the same area, to a renter again in a different area in the period of 5ish years (long story).
Rent in the first area was about the same cost for a two bedroom, two bath, 1000 sq ft apartment as the entire mortgage on a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1200 sq ft house, including principle, interest, and taxes. The only reason people would rent there is because they don’t have the money for a down payment.
When we left that area, we could have become landlords and rented the house out. We could have easily gotten twice the entire mortgage in rental income, but we felt that being a landlord was unethical (especially since we were relatively wealthy for that area, although we made less than the US median family income). We sold the house and broke even.
Now, we live in a much higher COL area. It’s true here that renting is much cheaper than buying, but that’s because you can’t get a SFH for less than about $1.5 million here. My rent on my 1 bed, 1 bath, 700 sq ft apartment is more than twice my mortgage in my previous area. Our incomes have increased, now we make slightly above the median family income. But our leftover at the end of the month honestly went down a ton. If we weren’t here to get an education, we’d be gone by now.
Just saying… As someone who has both rented and owned, I definitely feel more like I’m shoveling money into a fire as a renter. Owning was the best financial situation I’d ever been in.
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