Battle of the Sexes: Mortgages (Redux)
I wrote quite recently about a study that Genworth Financial recently did regarding the differences between men and women and mortgages. I came across a similar study done by Bank of Montreal and wanted to delve a little further into the topic.
I had no idea until recently that there was such a battle of the sexes going on over the topic of fixed versus variable rate mortgages. Although, come to think of it, I do remember a commercial for a bank where the whole content of the message was a man and wife each saying “short” and “long” to each other in a variety of humorous situations. Was that the battle of the sexes in action?
It’s interesting, when I bought my condo and then my house, it never occurred to me at all to take a variable rate mortgage. Perhaps I was lucky at the time that my husband wasn’t much of a risk taker in terms of monthly financials and left everything to me; so fixed rate we went, no battle needed.
It seems, according to the sort of people who study human behavior, that women have a predisposition to mitigate risk. Thus, they are predisposed to fixed rate mortgages.
On the other hand, men are natural risk takers and feel more comfortable putting themselves in uncertain positions.
While it’s known that variable rates are the proven winner in paying off mortgage principal, there is still the fear that anything can happen. I know that I personally felt that I wanted to know exactly to the penny how much my mortgage payment was going to be each month. How could I properly budget for something that was variable, even if it was likely to save me money? (Maybe if someone had told me how variable mortgages worked I would have known that the part that was variable was not my monthly payment.)
I think that maybe it’s time to break the stereotype and go variable. What do you think?
