I was definitely one of those people who bought during COVID, just after the first lockdown in Melbourne. Glad we bought our place as we wouldn't survive the multiple lockdowns in our rental. Sadly, I did not have the foresight to collar my rates. Tbh, I didn't even know there was an option. The only good thing we did was to not over-extend as we could definitely borrow more then what we finally decided to buy.

We came out of our fixed rate loan to a variable rate loan just as the interest rates started to rocket and it has been tricky, but when I did the math for what we wanted to pay per month, I did factor in a rate of 5.5% before things started to get less comfortable, however inflation is about to destroy everything.....

If you have friends with mortgages in Australia, you would have most probably heard of offset accounts whereby money in the offset accounts reduces the interest charged. I.e. $100k in offset account for a $100k loan means you pay zero interest. Is that something available in Finland?