What did you pay in interest when you bought your home, was it 30 fixed and what year?

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Interest rate conversations usually need to include home pricing. Of course home interest rates were more akin to what old credit cards used to be (more like store ones) but the home prices was so much less. That's a really big part of it. Doesn't matter much if your interest rate is really low right now if your home costs a lot more than it did when interest rates were much higher.

Right now our interest rate is something like 3.25 IIRC from May 2020, started out at 4.5 with PMI, refinanced to get rid of PMI about 2 1/2 years in (so something like early 2016) when the home met the 20% mark and that was 4.25 back then. However the more important part is to build our house brand new is estimated about 68% more to build right now which amounts to close to 200K more than what it was in early 2014.

 

[antmaril]

30 year fixed mortgage at 9% in 1978. We refinanced for 15 years when it went down to 6%. We paid it off early. Haven’t had a mortgage since.

 

[longboard55]

First place was 12%, second home was 9.5%. We bought a vacation home with a variable rate which turned out saving us a lot of money because the rate kept going down. Now it is around 3.25% you do not get the low rates on vacation homes.

I tell kids today, yes you have a bigger loan, but we made payments and never paid much off the principal

 

[design_mom]

First home was 8.125% 30-year fixed in 1997. Moved here in 2003 at 5% I think. Refinanced to a 15-year around 2010 at 2.5%. Only a few years left of payments.

 

[LYSE]

Yeah long ago rates were high but prices were lower...anyway I'm not old enough to have experienced high rates, first mortgage was 3.75 and I think the highest ever was 4.25...I'm at my lowest ever 2.75 right now...all 30 year fixed with little to no points.

 

[georgina]

First house 1987, 15 year mortgage at 9%, refinanced to 7% a few years later.

But also, when I was saving for college in the early 80's I was getting something like 14% interest on a money market fund. So, high rates for borrowing and high rates for saving. My current money market pays 0%, but I have online savings at 0.6% for cash.

 

[Turn the Page]

We bought in 2016 at 3.75% 30 year fixed. We are currently refinancing for 3.4% 15 year fixed and no pmi.

If the zillow zestimate is to be believed our home value nearly doubled since we bought it. We have to get an appraisal for the refinance so we will find out then. Home prices are nuts in my area so it may have appreciated that much.

 

[Snowysmom]

First home, small ranch, cost 37.5K in 1978 and the interest rate was 9.5%. 24 years we later bought a bigger house in the same town for 380K with a rate of 5%. We refinanced and I will be paying off the mortgage when I sell the house in a couple of months. We paid extra so we would have it paid off by the time we retired but unfortunately DH passed before he retired. I will be buying a condo with cash, no mortgage.

 

[The Mayor]

1982. 15.75% And that was the lowest we could find after shopping around. We rewrote numerous times and our final interest rate we had when we paid off our mortgage was 4.25%.

Biting my tongue very hard now so I don’t get points for a political comment

 

[Dan Murphy]

1st home, only home. 1971, 20 year mortgage (30's weren't around back then), 7.25%. Refi'd a few times, mortgage long gone. Value is about 10 times purchase price. But means very little in spendable money as you have to live somewhere.

 

[spiders]

First home in 2013 was 15 years at 3.25%

Second home in 2018 was 30 years at 4.25%

We refinanced last year at 15 years at 2.00%

 

[bobbiwoz]

Around 7%, in 1970, fixed 25 years.

 

[tvguy]

Interest rate conversations usually need to include home pricing. Of course home interest rates were more akin to what old credit cards used to be (more like store ones) but the home prices was so much less. That's a really big part of it. Doesn't matter much if your interest rate is really low right now if your home costs a lot more than it did when interest rates were much higher.

Right now our interest rate is something like 3.25 IIRC from May 2020, started out at 4.5 with PMI, refinanced to get rid of PMI about 2 1/2 years in (so something like early 2016) when the home met the 20% mark and that was 4.25 back then. However the more important part is to build our house brand new is estimated about 68% more to build right now which amounts to close to 200K more than what it was in early 2014.

I'm not sure I agree. My minimum required payments went from $1,110 to $900 to $625 just based on the interest rate on the same house so the interest rate made a HUGE difference. My daughter bought a house that cost twice as much as ours did, but with a 2.25% mortgage rate, her payment is $800 a month, and her interest paid each year combined with property taxes is less that she would need to itemize.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I'm not sure I agree. My minimum required payments went from $1,110 to $900 to $625 just based on the interest rate on the same house so the interest rate made a HUGE difference. My daughter bought a house that cost twice as much as ours did, but with a 2.25% mortgage rate, her payment is $800 a month, and her interest paid each year combined with property taxes is less that she would need to itemize.

You're thinking refinancing only. When people are talking about the original loan taken out, that's what I was discussing as it was mentioned about high interest rates. Yes a high interest absolutely sucks and impacts things but also an important part of the discussion is what the home cost when that high interest rate was taken out. It was framed in the way of "the news is acting like the sky is falling" A higher interest rate with a much lower purchase price of a home changes the discussion. IDK just felt that part of the discussion hadn't been mentioned yet.

And refinancing is part of the discussion but usually people aren't refinancing to a higher interest rate.

What you're talking about for your payments you'd have to compare what your loan was when the loan was originally taken out and what a loan would have to be right now based on how much it would cost for your house. If you'd have to take out a much larger loan to account for the home price that should be part of the equation IMO.

 

[pigletto]

Bought in 2019, 5yr fixed amortized over 25 years at 3.59%. Rates dipped much lower in the last few years. I imagine when we renegotiate the mortgage at the 5yr mark it will be around the 3.5% mark again.

(I‘m in Canada where it’s most common to get a 5yr fixed rate )

 

[PrincesCJM]

2009. 5.25% for 30 years fixed.
Refinanced in 2018 to 20 years at 4.875% fixed.
Refinanced April 2020 to 15 years at 2.75% fixed (maybe it's 2.5% - I can't remember). Locked that rate in right before the world stop because of covid.

 

[clh2]

1988, got 30 year adjustable rate starting at 5.5, with an annual adjustment not to exceed 2%, up to a maximum rate of 11.5%. The first adjustment took it to 7.5%, the next adjustment went to 9.25%. At that point, we were able to get a fixed 8%, so we refinanced.

 

[MrsPete]

We bought our first house in 1990, and our mortgage was just over 10% -- ouch.
We stayed in that house 11 years, and when we "moved up", it was to a larger house that needed some work -- we paid cash for that house, and we're still in it.

 

[Colleen27]

80% loss, that's brutal, I think this is the highest I've ever heard of, was this very rural Colleen27?
Our home is in the suburbs mid price range for the area so it held fairly stable value.

Not super rural, more the rural fringe of a major metro. It was a sort of perfect storm of a mess - most of the growth in value in that town and this whole part of our county was/is because people priced out of the Detroit metro found it attractive as a more affordable, safe neighborhood with decent schools. So when prices started dropping in the metro, fewer and fewer buyers were interested in the long commute. And around the same time, oil prices set records and gas spiked to $4+/gal, adding another layer of reasons to avoid living so far from the city and from even ordinary suburban amenities (the closest big box retail is 30min away, the closest mall is 45).

 

[Sinder]

2001 30 year fixed 6%, refinanced in 2003 30 yr fixed 5%. Paid it off early.