Comments on: Finance Brain Storm: Pay Each Others Mortgage

By: Ariah

Ariah — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 03:30:06 +0000

Zach,
Mindy pointed out that your friends lack of belief that it would work was probably an indication of their own thinking, that they would “screw people over.” I certainly wouldn’t join them in this partnership, but I might hook up with you and the Duncans, people I could believe would commit to it. I think the corporation thing could work too though.

Mel,
Well, I’m also certainly not suggesting anyone actually buy a house if it doesn’t make sense. Sounds like it might not for them. I’m always curious though, I think most people (generalization obviously) could easily pay off their house in about 5 years if they actually lived a more frugal lifestyle (which I would advocate they do permanently, not just to pay off a mortgage).
And as far as your willingness to stretch for someone else, I would say that’s the whole point of the Christian faith isn’t it?

By: melissa

melissa — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:56:25 +0000

it also depends on the area you live…for example my brother is working for a non-profit so he doesn’t make a ton of money, yet has to live in this area. so he is living about 45 minutes away from where he worked, and it was still next-to-impossible for them to find a home less than 200k. He and his wife have a pretty small ranch out in st. charles, and i’m sure they’d love someone to pay off that morgage! :o)
I’m less cynical than zach, or at least his friends and think that people would want to return the favor if their housing was paid off. although, i guess if you had a tough year following, there’d be less incentive to stretch yourself for someone else than you normally would yourself, right?

By: Zach

Zach — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 13:44:23 +0000

So I was telling some of my friends about this plan, and all of them said it totally wouldn’t work because 25% of the people involved would end up screwing over the rest of them once their mortgage was paid off. I still think it would would, you just need to be selective about who you decide to do this with, but they don’t think so. Finally I got them to agree that doing it could work by the families forming a corporation that holds all their homes as assets and where they are all equal partners with limited liability. I love your idea Ariah.

By: Christy

Christy — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 05:08:41 +0000

I really wish I could remember where it was, but there was an article about this recently that came up in one of my policy RSS feeds. I believe it was talking about how mortgage lenders were getting pissed because members of churches were paying each other’s mortgages for the very reasons you just talked about? It was a cool article, and now I have no idea where to find it. Worth looking into, though.