Rustico: “Why does the o.p. need “low initial payments” on a house they can afford?”
Using my (extremely conservative personal) standards for affordability, they wouldn’t need a low initial payment loan at all, even if interest rates were 20%. But I recognize others have more normal affordability standards. If interest rates went back to 15%, and house prices plummeted, I wouldn’t have any problem advising a young person on their way up to stretch a little for a more expensive property (by a little, maybe 10-25% more). They could then either live on rice and beans for 5 or 10 years, or take on a loan with initial payments for that period that are a little lower than a level payment loan, maybe 5-15% less for 5 years.
