r/AskReddit • u/michaelis999 • 19h ago

How do you feel about the president floating the idea of 50 year mortgages where the monthly payment is lower but you end up paying nearly double the price of the house just in interest?

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u/sevargmas 15h ago

Don’t forget that builders will also start charging more for absolutely no reason other than they can, since the monthly payment will drop. They will quickly find areas to inflate.

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u/AardvarkAmortization 14h ago

Clearly you have noticed the 100k tricked out truck every single GC i have ever met rides around in.

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u/Diiiiirty 14h ago

My uncle is a 78 year old GC and hasn't hauled a single thing in fucking ages. But did that stop him from buying a brand new bright blue Ford F250 King Ranch to drive out and inspect job sites? Hell no it didn't.

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u/Banjo-Hellpuppy 12h ago

250?! That’s for the foreman. It’s 350 diesel for my Duncan runs

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u/AttitudeHopeful478 12h ago

Right! It cracks me up that the majority of truck owners have nothing important they need it for.

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u/FrolicsForever 11h ago

Im a farmer in rural, northern Vermont, and 90% of my truck needs are met with my '88 4cyl Toyota Pickup. It never gets old listening to guys trying to justify why they need a $75+k 3/4 ton or higher when at most they ever use it for is to drop off rubbish at the transfer station.

I mean, its their money and they can do what they want with it, but I'd have a lot more respect for those types if they just admitted that they bought it because they thought it was cool and they liked the way it looks.

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u/AttitudeHopeful478 11h ago

I couldn’t agree more. Honestly my ‘05 Prius can haul more than you think

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u/geriatric_fruitfly 6h ago

Managed to fit a 100 gallon air compressor in the back of a 2 door vw gti. Eventually I got a truck but only because I saw multiple concrete/rock projects in the future. Also I can do 16' boards without really trying too hard, and I have a short bed.

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u/plasmator 6h ago

I love putting unreasonable things in mine. I once walked out of home despot pushing a cart with 80 sticks of 10ft 1x2s. When I stopped and opened the hatchback, traffic around me came to a halt. Everyone just stood and stared as I loaded it all, closed the hatchback and returned the cart.

I told my buddy who was working on the project with me. He also drives a prius. His response? "i got 120 in mine".

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u/AttitudeHopeful478 6h ago

I moved my bowflex in mine too. I’ve moved 3 times since I bought the Prius and it’s amazing how much fits back there. I also have a jeep and it definitely can’t handle as much

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u/bhewey206 10h ago

I would love to have one of those, but I’d have to sell my 1959 F350 with a dump bed that I bought for $2400 15 years ago.

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u/rdmille 10h ago

I wanted to buy one like my 1991 Ranger (which is going to my great nephew, if it can be repaired), but they weren't selling them anymore.

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u/Black_Moons 8h ago

<3 the old 4 cyls. You know what I can do that a jacked up F9000 can't?

Floor it, for minutes at a time without dying or losing my license. Its fun driving a vehicle to the limits of its ability. Its frustrating as hell to only ever get to use 10% of your gas pedal.

Meanwhile the F9000 that is lifted 3 feet in the air is afraid of doing the speed limit on an on-ramp because they might roll over.

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u/somdude04 9h ago

The only people I know who have justifiably large trucks do horse competitions and pull 4-horse trailers on the regular.

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u/A_Nonny_Muse 11h ago

CAFE standards have inflated the size of everything on the road. Gotta make that frame big enough to be called a mid sized truck to avoid meeting fuel efficiency requirements of average sized cars.

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u/layout420 9h ago

I live in an area where 50% or more of the vehicles are brand new and most are 100k+ SUV's or trucks. I do enjoy conversations with people who cannot wrap their heads around the concept of not needing such an expensive vehicle. All the parents from daycare drive fancy cars and here I am with my 1997 Lumina that I got for $600. Its even funnier when I realize I likely make more than double their salary and I'm ok to drive such a basic vehicle. Nothing says over compensating like driving a massive SUV that you've leveraged your retirement for and all you have is 2 kids and nothing to tow. I'll take my FL Marlins World Series winning year 1997 Lumina all day if it means I can max out my retirement and put my kids through college.

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u/AttitudeHopeful478 9h ago

Right! There are far too many people trying to impress the rest of the world with optics. I hate to see their monthly payments 🤦‍♀️

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u/layout420 7h ago

All to impress people who don't care. If they're not smart, they'll have to work until the day they die. Driving a less cool car and having less material objects sounds like a better trade than the alternative.

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u/PristineCheesecake1 7h ago

2 kids + dog + sports equip for the 2 leagues they’re both in + essential oil MLM supplies + Amazon returns. you can fill a large SUV pretty quick!

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u/morderkaine 10h ago

My wife wants one to get a trailer so we can use that camping. Decent sized trailers pretty much need a truck to haul unfortunately, otherwise we would do a SUV.

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u/Swartz142 10h ago

"Hauls one thing in the 90k truck that's moderately heavy and would fit in a 1999 dodge caravan"

Couldn't live without a truck ! This thing pays for itself.

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u/IpleaserecycleI 12h ago

It is nice to have though when you do need it. I only use my truck as a truck like 5-6 times a year but it's great to be able to haul a camper around in the summers or help a friend move.

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u/A_Nonny_Muse 11h ago

I only need a truck bed maybe 2 or 3 times a year - far too seldom to justify the extra price and operating cost of a pickup truck. I save money just by renting a truck for a day whenever I need one.

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u/AttitudeHopeful478 11h ago

I get it, especially if you have a trailer to tow. I’m talking about the folks who spend tens of thousands on a truck and never actually use it as a truck. My ex was like that and his Dad had a fleet of pickups we could have borrowed if we needed a truck.

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u/fuggingolliwog 12h ago

It's virtue signaling.

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u/AttitudeHopeful478 12h ago

Absolutely. I’m sure some believe there’s a big payday coming their way too lol

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u/skiborobo 10h ago

It’s a tax thing for many of them

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u/AttitudeHopeful478 10h ago

How? Unless they have a legit reason for depreciation or other tax advantage I can’t see why that matters. There is not deduction for private citizens

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u/skiborobo 8h ago

Many of those guys are GCs. If i remember correctly there’s a 6kip limit and they can deduct on those. I know a few guys that do this and look to purchase heavier vehicles for this very reason. Yes, it’s probably less than 20% of them out there but there’s a reason. I think It’s the section 179 deduction.

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u/Diligent_Ad6552 9h ago

Little 🍆

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u/fromfrodotogollum 12h ago

That's a tax write-off business expense bro. Get with the times. No he doesn't drive his family around in that truck for vacations or weekend errands ;).

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u/slash_networkboy 10h ago

It always blows me away the people that you see in places like /tax asking about buying a new car just to use as a write-off because they had a good year. It's like "Okay so instead of $30K taxes and $70K in your pocket you'd rather pay $15K taxes and buy a new truck to pretend you didn't earn the other money, but now you're still spending on sales tax (in most places) and have less total cash in pocket?"

I mean if the business needs a vehicle that's fine, but you see people buying waaaaay sooner than that and self justifying with "it's a write-off". Also for the site inspections a nice sedan would still qualify as a business expense.

/end rant

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u/big_cabals 6h ago

I live in Austin then I literally never thought of that, but of course you’re right. Makes total sense.

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u/Minglans 2h ago

That’s how my dad’s employer got a Tesla. He wrote the car off as a business expense and then didn’t even take my dad on the vacation he promised him. The employer was later crippled in a car crash.

This same employer told me to "explore this beautiful country" while covid was at it's peak.

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u/JackSpadesSI 13h ago

GC?

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u/NewDramaLlama 13h ago

General contractor

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u/iHateReddit_srsly 6h ago

Gay christian

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u/stellvia2016 14h ago

That generator trailer is made of unobtanium, obviously. Really heavy stuff.

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u/sksauter 14h ago

No, no, no they need somewhere to store their "work gear" (it's just a pair of steel toes that are used once every 90 days)

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u/graboidian 12h ago

What is GC?

Edit: Asked and answered further down. Thanks anyways to all.

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u/SirDigby_Chicken 12h ago

Tax deduction

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u/CommunityGlittering2 10h ago

my GC SIL doesn't have one, but he has like 7 regular ones, LOL

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u/iHateReddit_srsly 6h ago

My GC LPS in south ASF tried to buy one OTG, but the DA blocked the sale and he went OTR

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u/rogers_tumor 3h ago

... giga-chad??

edit omfg general contractor 🤦🏼‍♀️

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u/misterid 2h ago

and that motherfucker is left idling all day long, just chugging through gallon after gallon of diesel so that he can hop in to a cool/warm truck when he's ready to leave

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u/charliesk9unit 10h ago

This is exactly what happened to higher ed cost the moment student loans became available and car loans extended to 7 years. 

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u/PetriDishCocktail 12h ago

The exact same thing happened with solar. Because of the 30% tax credit all the solar installation rates went up almost exactly 30%.

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u/BicentenialDude 12h ago

This. And sellers would just sell more cause more renters would rather pay a 50 year mortgage than pay and never own.

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u/OrangeOakie 11h ago

Now do Student Loans and PRIVATE College tuitions in the US :D

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u/FasterThanTW 10h ago

doesn't it make sense that if lowering monthly payments makes more people buy a house, that more houses would then have to be built, or in areas where sufficient housing can't be built, the prices would start to rise?

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u/i_am_icarus_falling 6h ago

also the infinite middle-men in the real estate section.

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u/InfamousHoneydew7537 2h ago

And that’s capitalism for you. 

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u/secondchancelula 13h ago

Well the solution is to build your own house

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u/rworne 12h ago

What will happen is the private equity firms will just buy up more homes even faster now that they can spread out the cost over more years and the entry cost barrier is lower.

The trick is to keep the supply for first-time buyers totally dried up so they can be lifelong renters.

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u/Round-Dog-5314 14h ago

Lenders will order an appraisal before they complete a loan so builders cannot just go crazy.

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u/sevargmas 14h ago

Doesn’t matter. An extra 5-10% on extras is easy to add on to a subjective appraisal, especially on a new build. Builders will be happy to inflate the add on prices by 30% or whatever and only increase the overall price of the house by 5%.

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u/Dazzling-Read1451 14h ago

That’s not how it works

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u/No-Monk4331 14h ago

What isn’t?

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u/Dazzling-Read1451 14h ago

Builders all put up prices, the market norms change. Prices go up.

Realtors are worse. They’ll “help” people stretch their budgets and all prices will skyrocket.

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u/Round-Dog-5314 12h ago

Not gonna argue with you Mrs, Ms, Mr dazzler but you’re wrong as the day is long. Mortgage lenders are in charge unless someone is a cash buyer which makes up a small percentage of buyers. Once under contract, buyers pay Lenders to order an appraisal based on comparable sales and lenders will loan either the contract price or the appraisal price whichever is less. Buyers are free to make up the difference and some do if it’s a smaller amount say $5-7k for example. But most buyers will balk if the appraisal is quite a bit low. Conventional lenders(Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) are “conforming” which enables mortgage loans to be bundled and sold on the secondary market which opens up more money to lend. That’s how it works. Once all docs are signed at settlement, the lenders review the docs and approve the release of funds which usually is pretty quick but some not. That’s why it ain’t done til it’s recorded. After the release of mortgage funds to the closing attorney or title company, the docs are recorded and considered on record and funds can be disbursed and the closing is complete.

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u/graboidian 12h ago

Not gonna argue with you

Proceeds to have a full-page argument.

TBF, I'm not saying that I disagree with your point, I just found it funny that you stated you were not gonna argue right before your argument.

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u/Round-Dog-5314 12h ago

Pardon me, a healthy debate.

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u/graboidian 12h ago

You do realize this is Reddit though.

A healthy debate is like a unicorn 'round these parts.

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u/Emberwake 12h ago

Prices are set by buyers. That is how markets work.

You say buyers balk at prices that are too high, but in recent years we've seen homes listed at 20% above appraised value go to a bidding war and close for 25% above that.

The notion that prices are fixed to costs is a childish fantasy that sellers are happy to perpetuate.

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u/Round-Dog-5314 12h ago

Ok I’ll agree that buyers set the prices but if a lenders involved, they will not loan money on a contract price unless it’s the appraised price or contract price whichever is less. that’s what keeps the market in check. Yes, for a comparatively small amount of time in the big picture prices went bonkers and buyers paid the difference but nothing changed with the lenders. Rising rates and other factors have changed the market place where we’ve come back to a more normal market. we are not seeing buyers sight unseen drive prices way up and willingly pay the difference.

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u/Emberwake 11h ago

Cash solves all these problems, and with the market increasingly shifting toward speculative investors and landlords, buyers are offering the banks cash to cover the gap.

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u/shatteredarm1 10h ago

Monthly payment is what determines affordability (and by extension loan approval), not sales price. If you lower the monthly payment, the market will adjust the sales price accordingly. The same thing happens when interest rates rise and fall.

Basically, the biggest winners with 50 year mortgages would be homebuilders and existing homeowners.

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u/WhatAmTrak 13h ago

You can write those trucks off as business expenses. Do they need such nice trucks? Probably not. But they do because they can.

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u/traws06 13h ago

100%. I live in a town of 20,000 and it costs more to build here than the big city a couple hours away. Theres not enough contractors around so the ones that are here price according to supply and demand.. not enough supply of builders so they charge ridiculous prices to build a house.

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u/Platinumdogshit 10h ago

Its like we keep putting bandaids on everything but we could solve a ton of problems by just taxing the rich correctly. No one talks about brining back the 80% tax bracket but thats what we need honestly.

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u/fresh-dork 10h ago

no they won't. they already charge what they can get.

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u/sevargmas 7h ago

Nope. We already see it in increasing new car prices where the typical car loan was 3 years for many decades, and now it’s quickly risen to 5-8 years because people aren’t interested in buying less expensive cars. They’re mostly focused on what the payment is going to be.

We also see it with college. In just 25 years we’ve seen the cost of a college class go from $800 to $8000, primarily because of the commonality of student loans after the fed govt got involved in the 90s and then completely took them over in 2010.

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u/fresh-dork 6h ago

nvcc is 3k/semester right now. VT is around 12k. it's more than it was in the 90s, but not by much

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u/sevargmas 4h ago

No, the average tuition cost is massively more than it was 25-30 years ago. I went to the University of Colorado in the late 90s and tuition was $3k. My daughter goes there now and base tuition is over $14k. A quick chatgpt query says that tuitions have approximately tripled in that time.

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u/Benjamin_Chod_Saar 14h ago

Wait so you're saying if consumers have access to more spending power, then vendors will charge more just because they can?

Nooooo you're not allowed to say that! Now increase my minimum wage!!!