It seems like a tough dilemma in some ways. You want to own your own property, which means that you have to invest quite a sizeable amount of money in order to achieve this. You could get a mortgage, but do you really want to have the bank rule your life for the next ten, fifteen or even twenty-five years? Probably not. But look at the alternatives and you will see that a mortgage isn’t necessarily the devil in disguise.
In order to buy a property without a mortgage you only need one thing, but you need an awful lot of it. Yes, you guessed it. You need money. Do you really have the full asking price of that property available right now in cold hard cash? And bear in mind that that isn’t all you will have to shell out before your name goes on the deed. There will probably be surveys, fees and various other things that you have to pay for, all of which can add several thousand dollars onto the amount that you thought you were going to have to spend.
Getting a mortgage in order to buy a property doesn’t eliminate these extra fees. You will still be liable for them, and when you get a mortgage you will actually end up paying the bank far more than it loaned you in the first place because of the interest payments. However, without a mortgage, can you really afford that property?
If you can, congratulations. You are one of a very small minority in the world that has enough money to buy a property without having to borrow any from a third party, such as a bank or lending corporation. However, if you can’t, a mortgage offers you the opportunity to get onto the property ladder without having to save for forty years or more first. Yes, you will end up spending a lot more on your property than the original asking price, but you will at least be in your property, albeit a property that you own jointly with the bank. At the end of the repayment period you will own that property outright and you can consider the extra money you have paid as the price necessary in order to get into a property of your own when you did, rather than having to wait.
A mortgage is often seen as a nightmare – a debt that sticks by you through thick and thin and can easily take your home from around you. However, a mortgage is also often the only way that you can afford to get into a property of your own and you can often choose the terms so that you have a lot of leeway with repayments. You effectively choose the size of your payment, and you can even choose a fixed rate mortgage that means you will always know how much your monthly mortgage payment will be, rather than having the stress of wondering whether interest rates will cause your monthly payment rise beyond your ability to pay it.
