> Isn’t a substantial portion of a monthly mortgage payment deductible? Wow, mortgage payment deductions on owner occupied properties exist in the US? Makes s

> Isn’t a substantial portion of a monthly mortgage payment deductible? Wow, mortgage payment deductions on owner occupied properties exist in the US? Makes sense why people talk about pre-tax income when calculating affordability there then. Here nothing about a mortgage payment is tax deductible for the property you live in, only the interest of a mortgage payment on investment properties, and that rule is not long for this world. > I think the most unlikely part of that scenario is the 200k down payment The down payment requirement is steep, but here it is 20% which isn’t nothing, and we saved that in three years on slightly above average incomes for the area. Granted, living in house sharing arrangement so we could actually save. > Because they didn’t get fixed rates? We generally can’t fix mortgages for terms longer than 5 years here, so interest rate risk exists until you have a decent amount of equity. Most people fix for 2, because for the past decade rates have only been going down, but I imagine that pendulum has swung and people are carefully watching what’s happening in the US.