Building our castle - foundations

Took care of home loan matters today and returned to find they had wrapped up the field like a present. Again, this was rain/typhoon related. It still looks smaller than on paper, but I'll keep reminding myself of the architects words that "that's normal at this stage, and don't forget it is two floors".

The home loan. There are various home loan rates out there, some lower than what we were able to secure, but as I said yesterday we couldn't really shop around much for a bank. That's ok, because 0.95% interest on a fixed rate loan isn't something I am going to complain about. How good is that? Is there a catch? No.

Coming from Australia's 3.5%-7.5% home loan variations, I'm pretty happy with our situation. Of course, there are many other things that people will want to compare after saying that, but I'm happy with the manageable repayments that I will have from now on.

I mentioned that to the home loan representative that took care of our paperwork and she said that Japan was like that in the pre-bubble era, with home loan repayment interest rates around 8% or even higher. However, after the bubble burst and Japan's economy took a nosedive, interest rates at the banks came down as well.

Of course, as much as interest rates on home loans as low as that is a dream for many, it also means that interest on savings is also ridiculously low. I guess that could be "the catch" for many. In addition, you would never hope for the economy of a nation to take a nosedive like Japan's did after the bubble burst.