Million Dollar Mortgages

[Anonymous]

I was playing around with the Maryland database and looking up mortgages for my kids’ classmates’ parents. Blown away to find many, many $1-2 MILLION dollar mortgages. Why would anyone take this on? My spouse and I both have stable jobs and hate having a mortgage of several hundred thousand dollars. We live in a smaller (less than $1 million) house inside the Beltway. We know if one of us dies or loses their job, the other will be fine. Shocked at people, some with only ONE parent in the workforce, are taking on these giant debts! And some with kids who will be out of the house and in college in less than a decade. What am I missing?

[Anonymous]

Be careful, OP. Lest you turn into the kind of bitter nosy old woman who can't help but reveal that you've snooped way past the line of socially acceptable and that you can't fathom anyone making decisions that you didn't make yourself in simple conversation.

[Anonymous]

Dear Mrs Kravitz,

People can always sell their houses if they run into trouble.

MYOB

[Anonymous]

What kind of socially competitive nut job looks up mortgages of their children’s classmates parents ? You weren’t satisfied stalking LinkedIn to compare educational backgrounds ?

[Anonymous]

How do you think people are buying all these $1.5-2M homes?

[Anonymous]

WTF lady.

[Anonymous]

We have a mortgage over $1 million that we could easily pay off tomorrow. We prefer to keep our money and invest it given our mortgage interest rate is 2.375%. I assume there are many people like us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was playing around with the Maryland database and looking up mortgages for my kids’ classmates’ parents. Blown away to find many, many $1-2 MILLION dollar mortgages. Why would anyone take this on? My spouse and I both have stable jobs and hate having a mortgage of several hundred thousand dollars. We live in a smaller (less than $1 million) house inside the Beltway. We know if one of us dies or loses their job, the other will be fine. Shocked at people, some with only ONE parent in the workforce, are taking on these giant debts! And some with kids who will be out of the house and in college in less than a decade. What am I missing?

People who know it would be financially insane to pay $1 million in cash when you can borrow it for 2.5% and let your million grow in the market?

[Anonymous]

You can look up peoples mortgages? I knew about the real property database. It would never occur to me to look up someones debt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can look up peoples mortgages? I knew about the real property database. It would never occur to me to look up someones debt.

I am a person who is often in conversation with people I don't know well trying to pretend I don't know where they live or work, but this is even a bridge too far for me!

[Anonymous]

Our mortgage is around $1m. Our house is worth around $3m. We also have another home in the US that's paid off and worth just under $3m. We could easily pay off the mortgage, but it doesn't make sense to do that since the rate is 2.2% and our money is better off in the investments it's currently in. One kid in college and the other out already.

Not sure if this makes you happier or not. But many people are probably in a similar place.

[Anonymous]

They make a lot more money than you and can easily afford their mortgage payments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They make a lot more money than you and can easily afford their mortgage payments.

This, or have other savings or family money. Regardless, it’s none of your business but they’re probably more financially secure than you are.

[Anonymous]

You're missing that they have much more money than you.

[Anonymous]

I love our mortgage, lol. Low interest, and reliable cost for a place to live for the next 25 years? Our interest is 3.1- mortgage at 1.4 million. HHI is over a million this year. I’m sure friends would be shocked about the income, maybe the mortgage too. Whatever