Taking out a mortgage: the risk the system won't let you avoid

The mortgage: a risk the system won't let you avoid

A family signs a variable-rate mortgage. Euribor rises. The monthly payment skyrockets. The bank loses nothing. It's ordinary people who foot the bill. This scenario is no exception: it is the design of a system that sells the "dream of homeownership" as security, when it is in fact a three-decade shackle.

The rent-versus-mortgage trap

Renting is considered "throwing money away", yet it offers flexibility. The rental market, however, is distorted by intervention and speculation. A mortgage, for its part, immobilizes: it ties you to a job, to a location. And if variable rates spike, the payment can become unsustainable. There is no good option; the system is designed so that the mortgage seems like the only way out.

Saving and diversifying: a recipe few can trinc

Those who defend sensible home buying talk about saving 30% to 40% of your salary for four or five years, and about diversifying: not putting all your wealth into a single property. But that discipline is nearly impossible when wages don't keep up. Most people take out a mortgage without that cushion, taking on enormous risk.

The new real estate feudalism

Some argue that housing has become an instrument of rent extraction. Land speculation and financialization create a system where the majority pays for life for an asset that —according to the myth— could once be bought with a year's salary. That past paradise never really existed, but the current trend is clear: it is increasingly hard to escape the cycle of payments without owning anything.

The striking fact: despite the obvious risks, the queues to sign mortgages don't stop. The reason is not ignorance, but the lack of real alternatives. As long as renting remains absurd and wages don't rise, the mortgage will remain the lesser evil, even if it can ruin whoever signs it.