The threshold where you have enough has been driven up by crazy rents and house prices. Personally, I want my house paid off before I'm 40, so I shoot for maximum earnings and remote work that lets me live in a cheaper place. That ratio makes my ambition very attainable.
Related is the sustainability of work: I don't want to need high earnings past 40. I want to retire into a second career I'll find more fulfilling but which might pay dramatically less. Higher pay now is the only way I can achieve this.
Why would you pay off your house when you can keep the cash in an investment account making > 5% APR vs. the house loan which presumably is in the low 3s.
>> Why would you pay off your house when you can keep the cash in an investment...
I asked someone that in my mid 20's. He said "It's nice knowing I can support my family working at McDonalds if I have to." That stuck with me. Something fundamental changes in your life when you become debt-free.
> Something fundamental changes in your life when you become debt-free.
Being able to pay off a debt at anytime is equally freeing, for me at least. Paying off a loan with an interest rate significantly below inflation is not a great use of money[1] (and an opportunity loss). Putting that lumpsum into bonds (any bond with interest higher than the loan) is better, or even investing in stocks with a stop-loss. If I lose my job and have to flip burgers, that's when I'll pay off the loan and get a little extra from the investment/bond, thanks to the power of compounding interest.
1. Its the equivalent of someone offering you a 6- or 7-figure loan payable in 20/30 years at 2-3% when inflation is 6%, and you decline.
>> Being able to pay off a debt at anytime is equally freeing,
Let me remind you that in 2008 things were so screwed up, some lenders lost track of who owed what. Having a hard copy document that shows a debt was close out is not the same as having assets that could pay off the loan. Keep in mind too that it was also not a good time to trade investments for cash.
There are risks in every approach. I can't imagine taking out a loan on a property today and investing the money thinking it will beat the interest payments over the next couple years. At other times, it's less risky but the rates will probably also be higher at those times.
There is no loss of opportunity. You can borrow against invested money at very low interest rates, lower than mortgage interest rates, and people often do. In today's crazy real estate market, when people make "all cash offers" that is often just cash borrowed against securities. It is some of the cheapest debt that exists.
It's hard to argue in the abstract without figures and expected returns. If paying off the debt opens the door higher returns, then I'm all for it. All things being equal, I'll keep $250k cash with a $250k mortgage at 2.7% today, as opposed to a paid-off house and a $250k hole in my account.
> Something fundamental changes in your life when you become debt-free.
This to me is the only legitimate criticism, and it really boils down to risk-reward.
If you're holding cash for say a backup fund, great! That's good security and everyone should aspire to that. But also acknowledge that with 6% inflation, you're actually losing 6% on that backup fund.
Inflation is insipid. You _must_ take risk with your funds just to not lose the value of it.
You must take risks with everything. Owning a house, paid off or not, is risky in a multitude of ways.
At least monetary wealth can be diversely invested; so you have some control over it. Most of the risks that come from owning a house are completely out of your hands.
> Inflation is insipid. You _must_ take risk with your funds just to not lose the value of it.
This certainly seems to be the case, but it's fustrating. I can think of no fundamental reason why it should be so. Other than speculators and govt policies backfiring to destroy the safety of alternative places to keep your money besides cash.
I was being a little generous, yes. I wonder if that's what is triggering people.
The stated goal of govt seems to be low (but positive) levels of inflation and high growth. The current situation with high inflation and low interest rates makes even tax-free govt bonds undesirable. And they will need to raise rates. So I'd say policies are backfiring, yes.
Yeah, I don't get the downvotes. It's worse that they won't reply why either. At least converse when you are in disagreement.
> The stated goal of govt seems to be low (but positive) levels of inflation and high growth.
Yes, and I disagree with that position too, but people are taught Keynesian economics, so even beginning to unfurl that mess is asking for a downvote storm.
The same people that will argue inflation is beneficial for growth tend to believe they are also open minded, free thinking, and well `educated`. It makes for a difficult argument often resulting in a lot of pointing to `authorities` on the matter.
I think it's weird that people expect to just be able to just watch a pile of cash and have it maintain value indefinitely (or even grow in value). Every other resource you could trade for that money would decay over time.
Ah. No that's not what I meant. Option #1 is risk the money. Option #2 is sit on cash. You forgot about option #3: invest it somewhere that is both not risky and safe from inflation. Institutional investors have hedging strategies that achieve this. For us little people, there used to be crappy govt bonds that would safely give you the inflation rate more or less. Now they give you negative returns while inflation climbs. And of course the traditional hedges like real estate and precious metals are sky-high and dominated by speculators.
That doesn't mean literally paying off the low interest loan though.
You can save up so that you have enough money invested to cover all the remaining loan payments and consider that having paid off the house. But don't send the money to the mortgage company, invest it into something stable that pays more than the mortgage interest and you're better off.
(Not historically always possible, but with today's interest rates pretty easy.)
Yeah, but if the market crashes while you’re still overpaying your mortgage, now you’re out of a job AND potential savings that you can’t get back. With even inflation outpacing mortgage rates now, I’m not certain in what situation—even from a risk perspective—it makes more sense to pay down a mortgage more quickly than necessary. (With current rates at ~3%. Obviously in the late 80s it made sense to pay the house off as quickly as possible.)
I keep looking over the historical graph for broad indexes and I don't really see any window longer then 2-3 years where 3% would come out better. You just need a buffer to withstand those downturns.
VTSAX is a very popular broad-market index fund. Its price was overall flat from October 2007 to sometime in January 2013 - over 5 years - while returning dividends of around 1.5%. 3% beats that pretty handily.
>keep the cash in an investment account making > 5% APR vs. the house loan which presumably is in the low 3s.
One is guaranteed, one is not. Markets are volatile. I lived through 2001 and 2008 as a working stiff, that shit can drop on a dime.
Right now, I have no debts. House and vehicle are paid off and I have an "oh shit" account that's pretty good. I can sit here as a hermit for at least a year or two, three if I really hunkered down and pinched pennies. It's a good feeling; one less thing to worry about.
Now if I put all that money into the market and shit hit the fan, not only would I not be willing to sell stocks due to their price plummeting, I would still have a mortgage and car payment. I'd be in this situation for 6 months to a year. Not a great situation.
Ensure your freedom / ability to live first, then invest heavily, IMO.
This illustrates why rich people are rich, and have an easier time getting richer. Even if they don't have time or aptitude to learn about this kind of thing, they have family or paid professionals to guide them.
Go buy a house that will increase by >5%/year, but then don't pay it off any sooner than you have to.
Make the minimum payments, and invest in something that will return a stable 5%+ with your remaining income.
Just because the house itself increases in value, doesn't mean you should pay down the ~3% interest rate loan any faster than you have to.
And really, once you've built enough via this strategy, you should either invest in a more expensive house or buy a house to rent afterward.
This is all the consequence of inflation and easy money/loans, but the smart money move is to never pay off low interest rate loans. This is particularly true when inflation (acknowledged anyway) is 6%.
Using the 6% number, you're actually gaining (on average) 3% on a 3% loan just by using the cash.
I'm not sure exactly how it affects the calculations, but if the house is paid off, you can use the money that would have gone towards mortgage payments towards investments though. So instead of $1000/mo towards mortgage and $1000/mo towards investments, you could do $2000/mo towards investments. It's probably a smaller total return than your method, but it's way less leveraged.
Do the exercise on a spreadsheet. One row per year to make things simple.
Make 3 columns, "mortgage paid," "investment", "no-mortgage". Pretend the house is $100k. With the mortgage you get to keep that money and invest it, so first row in "investment:" should be $100k. Put $0 in the "no-mortgage" column, put $-421 * 12 in the "mortgage paid" column. I got that number from a mortgage calculator, assuming $100k loan and 3% interest over 30 years.
Then in row 2, "mortgage paid" cell should be previous cell - $421 * 12. You will keep paying this for 30 years.
"investment cell" should be previous cell * 1.05. We assume the investment return is 5% over long term.
The no-mortgage column stays 0. You spent the $100k to pay for the house, so it's gone right off the bat.
Repeat this for 30 rows (years). Then at the end look at the difference between investment vs. mortgage paid columns.
And then get back to me and tell me if you still think that is a "smaller total return" :-)
It’s always better to lever up if returns are greater than interest or inflation is higher than interest. And residential mortgages are the cheapest source of leverage available.
I'm just old enough to remember what the financial crisis did to people's pensions. I'm happier to take risks with the rest of my money if my home isn't exposed to them.
During a crash I'd expect to lose on both earnings and investments. Losing my home as well would suck.
I don't trust banks, the market and the governments manipulating them.
You never know when they're going to pull the rug from the infinite growth market.
Maybe Crypto will do that? Maybe a few more years of lockdown? Who knows?
I agree that it's an unlikely scenario, but I'd rather be poorer and own my house than be dependant on a bank - even if that means compromising on its size or location.
*assuming conditions over the next 150 years mirror those during the sudden rise of a single global superpower with control over the world's reserve currency and a continent full of unexploited natural resources at its disposal
Not exactly what you're looking for, but in the US I series bonds are currently paying >7%. The biggest downside is you have to hold them for a year. The other issue is you're limited to buying $10k in a calendar year.
Currently paying. It is a variable interest rate, and it would behoove you to assume that if a treasury is paying 7%, then real inflation is much more. Hence the SP500 returning 30%.
Sure, but if you're looking for the lowest risk thing that's paying at least CPI inflation. A lot better than cash under the mattress (or a savings account for that matter...)
I paid mine off years ago. I got the same thing then. "Name me one investment I can put this 100k into that will pay 1500 a month". That is closer to 15% per year...
I get what you are saying. It is fair. But my goal was to have no 'payment'. So it would need to generate enough to cover the whole thing. It was like getting a 1500 per month raise.
Related is the sustainability of work: I don't want to need high earnings past 40. I want to retire into a second career I'll find more fulfilling but which might pay dramatically less. Higher pay now is the only way I can achieve this.