OS
Lifer
- Oct 11, 1999
- 15,581
- 1
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Originally posted by: FreshPrince
I'd much rather pay off my house sooner than to worry about the fact that the bank can take away my house if I ever lose my job...
I have 1 more year to go! woohoo, then I'm a free man
I can buy anything I want, invest in anything, or just put it all in a bank and save for 4 years...which will allow me to buy another house and rent that one out. Retire and live off the rent, or save another 4 years and buy/rent out another house....so on and so on....until I get 3 or 4 houses to rent...
that way I can really retire and live off the rent money![]()
If I had 200K in cash, and had to buy a house in the 200K range, I would NOT pay it all off, especially considering how low mortgage rates are these days. With that much cash on hand, even if you lose your job, you can take your sweet ass time paying it off.
Not to mention if you paid it all off and lost your job, you still have to pay property tax, maintenance and insurance, good luck with that if you plowed all your money into the house. Like previously mentioned, if you don't pay your property tax, in a couple of months the city will come take the house from you and put it up for auction.
Also, the interest on the mortgage is tax deductible. With mortgage rates at ~6% today, IMO as interest rates go up, investments in the future will return >6% while you locked in a 30 year loan at 6%.
Of course this all assumes the house was realistically affordable in the first place. People who got into their homes in the bubble today by the skin of their teeth are asking for trouble.
