Subject: Re: OT: Berkshire or mortgage
You can get a 30-year fixed rate term, but you will pay through the nose for it. A quick Google search shows a rates of 7.05%.'

Hmm, perhaps, but I find that deeply suspect.
Many sites conflate the amortization period with the mortgage contract term.

A couple of top rate comparison sites both say nobody offers 30, and only one [major] lender offers 25.
They too could be wrong, but FWIW, RBC offers 25 years fixed at 9.75% right now.

The reason that 30 year fixed rates are so widely available in the US (with the right of renegotiation, no less) is that the US mortgage market is in effect government run.
Without agency guarantees, those products would not exist.

Jim