Cad said:
Nobody reading this board is operating at a financial level where the 5-7% difference you *can* make if you invest your home equity rather than let it sit in the property is going to make a hill of beans difference.
i completely disagree. what you are suggesting is that late 20 somethings take around 200k of their future savings over the next 5 years and slap it into their home. that 200k invested over the course of the average mortgage(25-30 years) at a reasonable return of 8%(the last 100 years of stock market ROI is around 9%) amounts to around 1.25 million us dollars alone, assuming the person never added a single extra penny to it. If people on this board arent concerned about the money they earn from investment they i really think they should be.
Cad said:
Everyone here operates off of their job income, and my strategy allows you to do the most with that income while taking minimal risk. What if you get laid off tomorrow and yourhighly leveragedinvestment can"t be liquidated in a reasonable timeframe? What if you take a bath on your other investments trying to liquidate to pay mortgages?
this also makes me wary. dont equate owning your home free and clear with minimal risk. we can come up with 100 "what if" scenarios that can counter the pros and cons of each strategy. for example, lets say you just owned your house free and clear by pumping 200k savings into it, then the subprime mortage hit. for those people who are leveraged, tons are walking away from their mortgages and homes because its no longer a wise financial investment. they simple send the keys back in the mail and take the credit hit because it would take 25 years to get above water on a home that drops 35-40%.
if a person puts the 200k into the house, he takes the full brunt of the loss, and has little savings left over. effectively, his finiancial worth has take a 20 year backwards leap.
its possible for any investment to "take a bath", house included. the one part of your argument that is valid is that if all else fails you can live in your own house. however, you cant live in a stock portfolio.
even this assuring argument is mostly false. when people lose their jobs (the fear of which is partly driving you to pay down the house) one of the highest likely events involved in getting a new job is moving to a new area. if i am the owner of an entirely non liquid totally non leveraged house,the only real option is by turning the property into a rental (since you cannot sell it without taking a huge loss). in both cases, i have far less equity than if i were fully leveraged, and little savings to assist in the purchase of a new house.
there is of course the chance i can find a job in the same area and keep the house. thats always possible, but i want to stress the fact that its a RISK. investments in the end are just a series of calculated risks.
Cad said:
My way, you don"t give the bank a lot of money in interest, you don"t run the risk of getting your home foreclosed, and in return for that, you give up living in a bling-bling house that you can dubiously afford (for a little while) and 5-7% income.
once again, living within your means is always wise. people have different definitions of what that means to them, but if you cant at least afford 4-6 months of your mortgage off savings (the average time it takes to sell a house), then i think you shouldnt live there.
i think the main difference in our viewpoints is that you see the house costing 200k by paying it off quickly and i see the same house costing 1.25 million lost in opportunity over 30 years.