paddyo

childcare is a kicker, especially if on a 457 and you don't get any rebate.

Beoz

Not having kids, I would imagine one purpose of putting a child in to care would be to allow one parent to work, but of course, the income that parent receives needs to be more than the cost of child care otherwise there's no point.

kips

Crikey. $410 a week for one child. That's nearly my weekly wage after tax for my last part-time job - 20 hours a week.

bingobob777

And there are more expensive ones.

Sunshine7

I don't know - could be somebody in their forties who has teenage children, buys an "average" priced house, doesn't have much of a deposit and needs to make the repayments as low as possible?

Or perhaps a first time buyer who can manage to meet the repayments over 30 years but couldn't afford them over 20 years?

What length of mortgage would you reckon is best? Obviously the shortest length possible is the best in terms of interest and commitment, but I mean at what length would you put the cut-off point between "off your head" and "acceptable"? Just genuinely curious because I an pretty green when it comes to mortgage stuff

Bermudashorts

30 years is a very long mortgage and most definitely not something to consider at age 40, I have never heard of anyone taking this long a mortgage in fact. For my first mortgage I took 25years and I believe that is quite standard and quite reasonable for the 26 year old me, all due to be paid off by the time I am 50ish. When I upgraded house, 12 years later I would have ideally liked to have kept within the original 25 years but it was a bit of a stretch to go for 13 years so we added on another 5 and went for 18 years.

You (general you) needs to try and reduce mortgage years as you get older. I don't know what we would do if we were to buy here now. I wouldn't move capital over so we would need to get a very big mortgage if we wanted to buy in Sydney. However I don't really want to get anything over 15 years and definitely would not go over 20 years now (at age 41). Perhaps we will rent long term in Sydney and buy somewhere else as investment / holiday home.

paddyo

I'm with you there!!! Rent in a nice home/area and buy in an area of good rental but where you may not want to live long term.

Wendy

You have now

Me and my ex took out a 30 year mortgage - he was 38 at the time. We did however pay an extra month payment per year to reduce the loan term faster - by the time I left we'd only 17 years left on it...after 3 of owning the mortgage.

I don't have a mortgage now though...not on my wage, that'd be stupid

bingobob777

Planning to be paying a mortgage beyond retirement age is just plain daft.

ukecadet

some people have no other choice

Sunshine7

That's what I was thinking, and also how I wouldn't like to be paying rent all through my retirement if I could help it.

Maybe a 30 year mortgage is the only way some people can get on the housing ladder.

mika24me

30 years is the standard mortgage length now in Australia, in the same way that 25 was in the UK. For our latest remortgage I wanted to reduce the term but our particular lender did not offer that, so instead we pay off extra every week and this should reduce our term to 20 years or less.

Big Galah

Hello. What's right or acceptable for you and your circumstances isn't necessarily the same for everyone else.

The reality for a lot of people is long-term mortgages to make repayments affordable. I would expect most people in this situation would hope their circumstances improve in the future to the extent they can remortgage. What are the chances that anyone taking out a 30-year mortgage now would stay with the same lender for the whole term, and not move house in those 30 years? Pretty unlikely I would say.

bingobob777

so the youngsters get shafted by their parents generation again.

Another reason house prices will fall.

paddyo

oh if only they would!!!