Having a second mortgage was looked down upon not all that long ago, it was almost as bad as being in arrears on the first mortgage, and people knew, in small towns at least. Shame had it’s place to keep people with poor impulse control from wrecking their finances completely, just to keep a halfway respectable reputation around town.
I recall our experience back in the 1970s on buying a home. Me and my wife could barely afford the home we were buying. The real estate agent advised us how we could obtain a second mortgage in addition to the first mortgage, showing us how much the payments would be. Luckily, I was suspicious and read the fine print on the second mortgage. Initial monthly payments were low, and the remaining principal was due in full after five years.
I whipped out a calculator, figured out how much the remaining principal would be, and recalculated what we would need to be paying on monthly payments in addition to what the minimum stated payments were. My wife and I scrimped and were scrupulous about paying more monthly than what was needed to not have a balloon payment to worry about after five years. Real estate agents and banks were not offering information, we figured it out for ourselves otherwise we would have been in trouble. We've always had the silly notion of not carrying debt if we could prevent it. Now retired with no debt whatsoever.