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Denmark offers homeowners 20-year loans at a fixed interest rate of zero

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Re: Denmark offers homeowners 20-year loans at a fixed interest rate of zero

#41

I'm very far from an economist. But in school I learned banks loan out "your money" to companies, for which they receive interest, which they also use to pay you interest. So when loaning money requires 0% of interest payments, and saving money pays out 0% of interest...that seems wrong?

That's the basic economic theory I grew up with as well, and it explains why both savings account and mortgage interest rates are so low.

But then you look deeper, and it turns out that the banks can spend and play with your money ten times over. They can earn money off of your debts as well, packaging thousands of mortgages into a neat package and playing with it on the stock market. I have no clue how it all works, but basically 90% if not more of all money is virtual play money for the financial institutions. Crypto is 100% play money.

Re: Denmark offers homeowners 20-year loans at a fixed interest rate of zero

#42
post #27
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right about the house prices in Germany, but your statement about ECB is not entirely correct. ECB does not "insist there is no inflation" in Germany or in Europe: in both cases it has been around 2 % for the last 20 years: https://portal.dataviz.ecb.europa.eu/views/HICP_dashboard_ET... There is a reason why the ECB estimation of inflation (HICP) seems lower than expected in your experience: it does not take…

Well if house prices have indeed doubled in 10 years then that means inflation during that period was about 7.2%, not 2% as they claim. Saying inflation is 2% instead of 7% can be seen as "insisting there's no inflation". I.e. the statement was a bit of hyperbole to indicate that the ECB is hiding or misrepresenting the real rate of inflation. And without more detailed info, hiding/excluding inflation increases in on…

Residential real estate for owner-occupiers is rarely a cash-based sector. The vast majority of owner-occupier buyers will get a mortgage.

That means that in this industry it makes more sense to look at the cost of the mortgage, than the cost of the home.

Particularly because a home is an asset, like a stock in a company. The fact it goes up in price isn't 'inflation' in the sense of the consumer price index (i.e. prices for consumption).

What is more relevant to measure as part of inflation in the sense of consumption, are the monthly costs around housing, regardless of the price of the underlying asset. For example, if interest rates went to 30%, and housing prices dropped sharply because of reduced financing capacity, we would not say that housing got cheaper or more affordable. We'd rightly look at monthly housing costs and saw that due to 30% interest rates, it got a lot more expensive.

So it makes little sense to say 'prices doubled, so inflation is 7.2%'. You'd have to look at monthly housing costs, which have not risen that much, due to interest rates dropping over time. For example, a 300k home in the US (interest rate 3.5%) costs as much (read: same monthly payments) over 30 years as a 485k home (60% more expensive) at 0% interest rates like in Denmark. So it makes sense that in a world where interest rates are dropping, you can see home prices go up much faster than housing costs / monthly payments / interest rates.

If you look at it from purely a cost-perspective (excluding principal paydown, as it's only a negative a cashflow, but not an expense), the difference in monthly costs between e.g. 0% and 3% becomes even bigger, allowing for even larger price differences that don't translate into monthly cost differences.

Re: Denmark offers homeowners 20-year loans at a fixed interest rate of zero

#43
post #2

House prices are driven upwards due to low interest rates, so this move will most likely only exacerbate the already high house prices. I'm not sure about Denmark, but in Germany house prices have about doubled in the last 10 years, (with the ECB insisting there's no inflation). Given the choice between high interest rates and cheaper house prices, versus low interest rates and expensive houses, I'd rather take the f…

I'm very skeptical at the following claim, if taken at face value: > Germany house prices have about doubled in the last 10 years In the capital, prices 10 years ago were extremely low. People who bought apartments between 10 and 20 ago bought them as low as 1000€/sqm, which is exceptionally low for a European capital. Under such conditions, price doubling is expected independently of any policy.

Berlin is not a normal European capital in almost every way. Look at Frankfurt (financial capital of Germany/EU) or Munich (capital of Bavaria) if you want to see how Berlin would be if it were "normal". Then you will find stuff like this [0].

[0]: https://www.ubs.com/global/en/media/display-page-ndp/en-2020...

Re: Denmark offers homeowners 20-year loans at a fixed interest rate of zero

#44
post #2

House prices are driven upwards due to low interest rates, so this move will most likely only exacerbate the already high house prices. I'm not sure about Denmark, but in Germany house prices have about doubled in the last 10 years, (with the ECB insisting there's no inflation). Given the choice between high interest rates and cheaper house prices, versus low interest rates and expensive houses, I'd rather take the f…

Little trick for a piece of mind: Recalculate prices and salary into gold. You will discover that things are more or less the same and stable. Shoemaker in 15th century made similar money as today.

Given that the gold price has increased by a factor of 8 in the last 20 years it's hard to see how that could be true. Even if it happens that there's an equivalence between today and 1450, a shoemaker in 2000 would be earning 8 times more.

EDIT: To put it another way, over the last 20 years the Dollar, Euro and Pound have all approximately averaged out to their target 2% inflation rate. Prices in gold terms have averaged to 9% deflation per year. Since 9 > 2, gold is less stable than modern fiat currencies.

Re: Denmark offers homeowners 20-year loans at a fixed interest rate of zero

#45

I'm very far from an economist. But in school I learned banks loan out "your money" to companies, for which they receive interest, which they also use to pay you interest. So when loaning money requires 0% of interest payments, and saving money pays out 0% of interest...that seems wrong?

Actually, usually, when a bank gives out a loan, it simply writes two matching entries in its ledger. One is an amount of money which it owes the borrower (immediately) which manifests itself as credit in the borrower's account: a liability for the bank. The other is the amount of money which the borrower owes it (over the length of the loan, plus interest), which is an asset for the bank. It's not actually taking deposits and lending them out: the loan itself creates money that previously did not exist; loans create deposits rather than vice-versa. In modern economies with fractional reserve banking, almost all of the money in circulation is debt created in this way. In England as of 2013, it was 97% (source below). The bank is prevented from doing this infinitely by a combination of market forces and the monetary policy of the central bank, primarily the interest rate on central bank reserves held by the commercial banks.

If you're interested in how this whole mind-bending system works, the Bank of England has a very well-written explanation:

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/m...

Re: Denmark offers homeowners 20-year loans at a fixed interest rate of zero

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus, can yong folk afford to buy anything at this point?

I don't want to be the spoilsport, but yes, they very much can and it's not even that difficult. Case in point: I moved to Finland as an immigrant 9 years ago, with nothing but a backpack, girlfriend and $12k in my bank account. Within 7 years, we paid down the mortgage for 100 m2 house in the capital area, while raising two children, with one above average and one below average income. And I don't feel like we were…

I was early 30's when I finally bought my house; for me, it was a combination of not feeling like settling in a house just yet (I switched jobs and cities a few times over the years), and once I was ready, I didn't just settle for the first thing that came up but I had some basic requirements (things like some outdoor space and a separate bedroom, I know, shocking). Then came the issue that housing prices went up faster than my income could keep up with. And of course I was single / single income; entering into a financial interdependency (my vocabulary is on fire today) is not the norm, and cynically speaking, most relationships end up in tears, sharing a mortgage in that case is even more sucky.

But anyway, the rent I spent on various 'student' housing over the years does add up to a quarter of the value of my current house. In retrospect, I should've bought a cheap apartment ten years ago.

Re: Denmark offers homeowners 20-year loans at a fixed interest rate of zero

#47
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus, can yong folk afford to buy anything at this point?

Downward pressure and stability margins have been added recently by forcing people to amortize their loans, seemed to cool the market for a year or so until continuing to increase. Loans above 70% of value needs to be amortized by 2% per year. Loans above 50% of value needs to be amortized by 1% per year. If your house loan is more than 4.5 times your yearly income, regardless of the percentage, then you need to amor…

Agree, and to add some context, a lot of people have parents who’s mortgage was all but eaten up by 15% inflation in the 80s.

Re: Denmark offers homeowners 20-year loans at a fixed interest rate of zero

#48
post #2

House prices are driven upwards due to low interest rates, so this move will most likely only exacerbate the already high house prices. I'm not sure about Denmark, but in Germany house prices have about doubled in the last 10 years, (with the ECB insisting there's no inflation). Given the choice between high interest rates and cheaper house prices, versus low interest rates and expensive houses, I'd rather take the f…

Little trick for a piece of mind: Recalculate prices and salary into gold. You will discover that things are more or less the same and stable. Shoemaker in 15th century made similar money as today.

Not sure shoemaker is a good example. Wouldn't that today be Nike, Adidas, huge corporations and not individuals?

An individual shoemaker today is probably in the luxury business.

Re: Denmark offers homeowners 20-year loans at a fixed interest rate of zero

#49
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German housing is a litle different, as many prefer to rent, so less demand for beeing an owner.

Why do they prefer to rent?

After WWII the German government created strict renter protection laws and the state invested heavily in relatively high quality public housing. You can compare the results to the UK, which cities were also bombed, but invested in private housing instead. Germany also famously had been "the sick man of Europe" before the current boom, were real wages did not rise for a long time.

Re: Denmark offers homeowners 20-year loans at a fixed interest rate of zero

#50
post #23
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right about the house prices in Germany, but your statement about ECB is not entirely correct. ECB does not "insist there is no inflation" in Germany or in Europe: in both cases it has been around 2 % for the last 20 years: https://portal.dataviz.ecb.europa.eu/views/HICP_dashboard_ET... There is a reason why the ECB estimation of inflation (HICP) seems lower than expected in your experience: it does not take…

I may be tired or dumb, but your argument sounds circular to me. Of course the ECB won't insist there is no inflation if they themselves have defined housing to not be included in the definition they use to measure inflation. This doesn't mean that the parent commentator is wrong nor does it imply that ECB is correct in their definition. For most people, housing is a significant cost in day to day life, and will of c…

It is not a circular argument to show that a statement is not correct: ECB never said there is no inflation in the first place. ~2% is not "no inflation"; 2% is the target that the ECB aims at.

In addition to that, I added an explanation why such a number seems lower that you could expect.

Please note that ECB does not define the HICP, the European Commission does it: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/hicp/faq

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