Should 40 year mortgages be banned?

One of the things that people totally forget is that when self declaration mortgages were taken out the market it made it very very difficult for many that owned companies/ self employed to obtain mortgages unless they had 35% plus deposits- this then put many of these people into the rental market- quite a lot of whom are modestly high earners and certainly earn more than many PAYE employees - and often have a far better idea if any downturns are looming income wise... we only really earned enough to buy anything worth buying in the last 10 years when we were 52 plus and hence far far harder to get mortgages in the area we choose to live. So we have carried on renting - we could easily pay a £400,000 mortgage over say 16 years but at 10% deposit and would just sell up at the point we couldn't- I personally think like some other countries do that lifetime mortgages at a fixed rate make sense for many
and you sell up when it no longer works. In the meantime you can overpay as much as you want or pay lumps off if you inherit etc.

'Why cant people save a larger deposit and live with parent like we did and our kids did before they put down large deposits

Sadly, too many people IMO want to run before they can walk.'

Err, because some people don't have parents. Because some don't have the option to live at home. A huge number need to go where there is work.

You are seriously controlling OP, can you hear yourself? If people don't do what you did then they shouldn't be allowed to buy a home !!

I'm probably the same age as you and even I can see how unfair and unrealistic you are being. Yours isn't the only way.

People don't tend to buy one house with one mortgage for the rest of their lives.

House prices have increased out of line with wages.

It's lovely you managed to do all that and I am sure you will have a financially secure retirement.

But please - don't campaign to leave younger people today renting in an overheated market with no ability to save the fabled 10% deposit.

Your faux innocence and complete lack of empathy and understanding for those that will never benefit in the way you have is laughable.

IMO house prices got so high because of low interest rates. Should we increase them back to 6-7%?

None of your business, really, is it?

House prices are hideous for younger buyers now compared to when you and I started out - if a 40year mortgage brings the monthly payments down to around what they’d be paying in rent on a similar property, I am all for it - most mortgages allow for you to pay off up to 10% during any year, so people can save along side or use bonuses etc to pay off chunks if they wish to.

No-one is, therefore, obliged to take 40 years repaying them, so I can’t really see why you’re so ‘anti’ something that has no impact upon you… other than it means you may not be able rent your properties out so easily if this becomes the norm? And it will disincentivise people from speculating with rental properties, hopefully freeing up more homes for young buyers?

In countries like Japan mortgages are over 100 years with children inheriting them so no properties and the loans attached to them are passed on providing long term security for extended families. Believe they’ve been discussed here.

Many people are living with parents!? But wages are absolutely crap and house prices high- that’s down to supply and demand not mortgage length. Lots of parents don’t want 25 year olds still living at home and due to the cost of living might need to downsize so there isn’t room anyway!

Your writing style is really odd. Like one of those chat bots

Again you miss the point I assume deliberately. We need landlords. For those who cannot afford to buy. Who don’t have a deposit. There is no way round this.

landords are selling up. And due to it rent is increasing due to shortage of supply . It is not the landlords fault you didn’t have a deposit

You were lucky enough to buy your house years and years ago when the whole thing was far more affordable and achievable. You keep repeating in your OP how you have paid off this, paid off that, we’re able to get a 25 year mortgage. Yet you begrudge someone trying their hardest to own rather than rent. Right. Nice one.
It’s an impossible dream for so many people to afford their own home at the moment and that’s not because of 40 year mortgages! Completely tone deaf.

It's true, no one forced me to rent - I could have slept in my car for 15 years or moved back in to my parents' spare room in an area with no jobs.

There are a finite amount of houses. When landlords buy them, other people can't. This isn't complicated. We live in a society and our actions affect people we may never meet; this doesn't give us moral carte blanche.

40 years of you are under 27 is fine. If over 27 then 1 year shorter for each year of age.

The only thing that fuels property prices (or any other prices) is demand.

As our population rises, competition for each home increases.

With 40 year mortgages, ownership is accessible by maybe 80% of the population.

With 25 year mortgages, ownership is accessible by maybe 40% of the population. The other 60% are forced into the hands of BTL landlords, private equity firms, the very wealthy and Rachman style sharks.

Which do you think is more desirable?

I agree with @Meadowfinch, stopping 40 year mortgages just restricts access to a group who otherwise would be unable to afford to buy. There are many things affecting property prices, the biggest being supply, exacerbated by lack of development, BTL, Air B&B, and second property ownership. All far more than a few younger people getting a long mortgage term. All you would be doing is restricting the opportunity of home ownership more.

You are part of the reason house prices are astronomical OP, you ve taken far more than your share out of the housing market if you own additional properties.

I'm fortunate enough to be old enough to have bought before things went crazy recently but not old enough to benefit from the huge increases in the early 2000s as I was a college student then.

House prices where I am are crazy and I'm not even in the South. I have no idea how someone would afford to be a ftb today and I say that as someone who only bought my first house 10 years ago.

OP, just because you did it one way, doesn't mean others don't want to do another. There is no need for you to interfere. 40 year terms allow more people to get started. And a mortgage is a loan on an appreciating asset so why would you restrict access?

Anyone who takes out a mortgage is a grown adult and understands what 40 years means. They are capable of reading the terms and any mortgage advisor would be foolish indeed to try to missell.

In most cases, if people start on a 40 year term, they adjust that when they remortgage, or make over payments.

So the only thing you seek to restrict is access. Which is pretty selfish no matter how you look at it.

A house doesn't guarantee elderly care, there are many threads on here (and even IRL) where people are annoyed at being in the same care home as council-funded people.
Similarly, while there's no pension housing benefit etc is payable to an elderly person, same as a single person.

The key issue here isn't really 'how' to pay for houses, it's their availability in the first place. If they were plentiful, rents wouldn't be so high, and neither would prices. BTL is neither here nor there because the government outsourced their responsibility to provide social housing to the private rental market. If there was BTL but ALSO a load of social housing then there'd be no problem clearly.

Of course the population has increased naturally but many areas have seen an increase in demand from temporary residents such as students and second home owners. We're a multicultural, densely populated country. The Swedes are mostly homogenous (although I hear that it's changing), and a population density that's a tenth of the UK's. Long-term migration is a much bigger driver of UK population growth than Sweden. Similar challenges are faces in countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

I’d like ban on banning stuff.

Leave people alone.

But that does not mean it’s the ops fault. Pretending every renter can buy if there is no landlords is batshit.

@ItsSerious* Various things contribute to increased property prices, including multiple home ownership. Why not sell your rental properties at a reasonable price so that people can buy their own home without a 40 year mortgage? Just a thought.*

Of course the OP won't sell up! It's soo much easier for the op to ask us peasants to stop taking out mortgages so they can then increase their rental portfolio and get wealthier

Op- The price of food has also increased , shall we also stop buying food to help curb the rise ? People are taking out such length mortgages as it's the only option for them - it's not by choice I very much doubt! Banning such length will certainly send the housing market in turmoil - actually on the flip side - it's people like you would vastly benefit!!

Ah yes, I'm sure it was very tough for them to choose between renting and sleeping on the floor in the woods.