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Sorry, I'm dense. For me being in debt and paying off something like a loan on a house has the purpose of paying something you do not have the funds for to pay off in one go. Seeing as the longer you take paying it off, the more you actually pay since rates increase or whatever, depends on contract specififcs.
How is it not a smart thing for you? Is this about US credit rating system or something else.
Edit: thanks to all replies, not gonna spam thank yous to you all. Didn't consider those options.
My savings are invested in the stock market, and the returns I get from that are higher than the interest on my mortgage. If I liquidated my investments to pay off the house, the savings from not paying mortgage interest would still be less than what I’d make from the market over the same period. I’d rather use the profits from my investments to cover the mortgage interest - that way I still have money left over. If I did the opposite, I’d lose that extra money.
Your personal financial situation is not really representative of the financial situation of Americans in general though.
No, even regular savings accounts have ~4% interest, so it makes sense for anyone who got a mortgage more than 2-3 years ago when the rates went up. Any extra money shouldn't be going to pay down old debt faster, it should be in savings or other high yield accounts.
What would happen if stock market dives?
The value of my portfolio dips too, but I don’t actually lose anything unless I sell. I just hold and wait for prices to recover - as they always have so far. In fact, when the market drops I buy even more, because the same money gets me more shares. People don’t lose their savings because of a crash; they lose them because they panic and sell for less than they paid.
Besides what others have said, there is a mortgage interest deduction on taxes in the US. It’s basically the government saying “we want you to buy a house, so for the interest you pay on a home loan, you don’t have to pay taxes on it.” So combine that with a low rate, and it absolutely makes sense to have that debt and put the money to work elsewhere.
That is still technically true, but it requires filing your taxes with "itemized deductions" wherein you provide a complete list of all the things that you can deduct from your taxable income before calculating the tax owed. Stuff like mortgage interest, charitable donations, medical and education expenses. Back in 2013 up to 30% of tax filers did that. Mostly this was done by higher income people who had enough income and deductions to put them over the default standard deduction.
The "standard deduction" was increased in big changes to our taxes in 2018, and since then only about 10% of filers itemized. So mortgage interest isn't usually paid with pre-tax money anymore by up to two thirds of those who did it before.
The other reasons for carrying a low interest rate mortgage are still true.
I didn’t realize the rate was so low now for people who itemize. I guess I’m outing myself when I say we still do it? I’m not loaded or anything, but we do enough giving and have mortgage interest to make it worthwhile.
It could just be that you are in a higher cost housing market, or have big charitable donations. But also, yeah, you're probably also kinda loaded. 🙃
(at least when compared with the median American)
Well, we’ve been living the DINK lifestyle for a long time. It would be a very different story if we had only one income, or kids, or both. But yeah houses are pretty expensive where we are. Though from what I can tell, houses are expensive everywhere now 🫥
True 💀
I have enough to pay off my house right now but I'm not because the interest rate is both lower than inflation and what I earn from interest, and other invesents, plus the increase in home values. If I paid off the house today then I also wouldn't have as much in my emergency fund. I have 5 years left of the mortgage, I'm paying roughly $50/mo interest which goes down every month.
I'm not who you are responding to, but I'm in the same position.
Interest rate on house mortgage is around 2%, currently looking to invest in an apartment in Europe. The current rates are ~4% here, so it makes more sense to keep the cheap money from the house mortgage than to trade it for more expensive money.