Finance & economics | Buttonwood

Should you fix your mortgage for ever?

You can ignore rising rates, but you pay an arm and a leg

Illustration of a man pinned to a wall by a house-shaped pin.
Image: Satoshi Kambayashi

Few assets are as political as housing, and therefore few markets depend as much on national borders as those for mortgages. Governments can twiddle endless dials to control what goes on, concerning everything from how much you can borrow and who can lend, to what they can do if you stiff them. For today’s borrowers, though, one dial feels most urgent: how long is your fix?

This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Home and dry?”

From the September 9th 2023 edition

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