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Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

I'd love to know if only in America is the interest rate on your home loan a 10 or 20 year decision. Here in Australia, and from my own experience in the UK you could secure 5 year fixed, and pay a premium interest rate to do it compared to current market variable.

The idea that for the life of <that> loan its 2% but sorry, for you its 4% forever, is totally unlike the experience in the UK and Australia.

How about elsewhere?

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AFAICT rates are fixed in France for up to the maximum of 25 years. I think banks aren't allowed to loan you money for a longer time than that.

If your rate was high, but the usual rates went down, you can usually renegotiate to bring it lower.

edit: [0] shows the evolution of rates for several terms. The legend is red: max, yellow: average, blue: min. You can change the term with the middle dropdown, an = year. The left drop-down allows choosing a region. For Paris, pick Île-de-France.

https://www.empruntis.com/financement/actualites/barometres_...

Here in Norway it's been common to have floating rate, though you could get 3, 5 or 10 year fixed if you want.

Of course a lot of those with floating rate loans are now feeling the squeeze, even though the banks are supposed to ensure you can handle a 5%-point increase in rate at the time you apply.

I'll excuse those who were kids in 2008, but the rest should have recalled how 5-6% sounded like a great rate for a loan.

Home loans in the US are usually fixed for 15 or 30 year terms. The positive end to it is that you are free to refinance at a lower rate should one come available to you. I personally missed out on 2.5% because I had bought the home too close to the time when the rate was available.

In US there is both fixed and variable rate. Most people go with fixed rate mortgage which is typically 15 or 30 years. And you can refinance it later if you find better rates. There are fees for the new loan but if the rates improved a lot it might be worth it.

In Italy you can fix for 15,20,30 years (same as other southern european countries?). Notably access to credit here is harder due to to the debt crisis we had after 2008.

In the nordics like Sweden is like Australia, you can fix for a few years at most.

What are the interest rates on those terms? That’s the interesting part

I had a 20y fixed at 1.2% last year

That’s incredible

In Denmark, all lenders must be able to take a 30 year fixed interest mortgage. If they can do that, and still have additional room in their finances, they can be allowed to take home a more risky loan, all the way down to interest adjust every 3 months.

My understanding is that fixed, 20 or 30 year mortgages are limited to countries like the US, Denmark, and a few others.

In other countries you can get longer fixed terms, but the increase in interest rates make it quite unattractive.

In Denmark, the difference in interest is 1.5-2.5% between a fixed interest loan and a variable one. Historically it has always been a good idea with a variable interest loan, but that changed after covid.

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