My Real Estate Advice:
Work hard & have a good Employment Record. Get pre-qualified for a 15-year loan at your income level. Buy LESS house than you can afford. Have a BIG cash down-payment. Work like H#ll to pay it off as soon as you can. Sell house. Plow the proceeds into a nicer house. Repeat until retirement.
“is why borrowers are refinanced into longer-term FRMs rather than less expensive ARMs, such as a 5/1 ARM“
Because they got sodomized in 2008 with those.
Poor baby bankers. They gave a 3% fixed mortgage to some poor bastard who can just barely afford his mortgage because of rising food, gas, and electricity prices. Now the interest rates are 8% and they can't force that poor homeowner to pay more.
Darn those fixed mortgages!