[damiankennedy]

How long do US people typically fix their mortgage? Are there many people that will refinance their home and have to pay a higher rate or does this just happen if you move house? Can refinancing be avoided if you just move house and transfer the debt to the new property but keep the same rate? In New Zealand you can fix for 6 months, 1 year, 18 months, 2, 3, 4 or 5 years with 2/3 being most common but recently 6 months to 1 year becoming popular due to the expectation that rates will fall. The flip side to that is a lot of people on a historically low < 3% 3 year mortgage had to take a 6%-7% mortgage so a lot of money gets taken out of their pockets and the economy.

[germinalphrase]

It’s quite common in the US for homeowners to have their rate fixed for the full fifteen/thirty years of the loan.