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Comment by tpm | Hacker News Reader

Can't confirm Estonia but certainly looks credible for Slovakia (1.35% - mine is 0.9%). But beware those are variable rates, so not fixed over the whole mortgage timespan but like 1/3/5/10 years, with 10 years being unusual and also the highest rate. So a lot of people who took out mortgages with 0.6% fixed for 1 or 3 years will have a hard time as the rates will climb significantly soon.

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As someone who's not even thinking of buying a house, do fixed rate, fixed term mortgages even exist? It seems variable rate mortgages, while making financing more widely accessible, have caused their fair share of financial issues/instability.

Seems like it depends a lot on the local practices. Here in France the vast majority of mortgages are fixed rate and term. I'm probably a pessimist but it seems way to risky to take a variable rate, who knows what the future will hold in 15, 20, or even 30 years ?

> it seems way to risky to take a variable rate, who knows what the future will hold in 15, 20, or even 30 years ?

That's my gut instinct as well.

Not an expert, but certainly even in Slovakia you could do an 10 years mortgage and fix it for 10 years. But people usually don't do that because money was getting cheaper until very recently and also 10 years is not enough to finance houses or flats at current prices. And fixing it for longer is either not possible or very expensive.

Aren't most mortgages in the US fixed rate?

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