Matter of perspective I guess. When I looked at my early mortgage payments and 85% of the payment was interest so after 10 years I would have barely paid down the principle at all. To me, that feels like waste.
I invested with steady 12-14% returns for 10 years and then watched it all get wiped out. The interest rate on paying of debt doesn't change. Granted, at current rates it's a lot tougher to make the argument for mortgage interest vs other types of debt.
Nobody ever shows a compound interest chart with anything other than a steady interest rate (aka - 30 years of 10% return = millionaire!). A single negative or downturn can have a pretty dramatic effect on those projections. If you look at those same projection charts and take the amount you'd look to invest over the first 10 years, but put into into debt payment instead of investing so that you get everything paid off, then take that same amount you would have been investing, start investing it plus the money that you're no longer paying in monthly expenses then you'll find the end of the 30 year period to be an almost identical result. The only difference is that after 10 years you've eliminated virtually any risk of personal bankruptcy.
If you can find something with a guaranteed long term return higher than the mortgage interest then it's another ballgame, but those are pretty hard to come by. Right now dividend investing seems to be the closest approach that generally lets you ignore the actual interest rates over time and instead focus on building cash flow.
But this is one of those topics that is part math, part point of view and part personal comfort level. This was just my perspective.
I largely agree with you on this. I focused on my mortgage and as a result I have less than a year of payments left. I didn't ignore investments either - roughly 10% of my income into the market - but I did not pay the minimum mortgage payment in favor of investments.
There was a point a few years ago where liquidating the investments could pay off the mortgage. To me it seems that you can get some of the benefits of the emotional release of being debt free if you have the capability to liquidate and clear debt.
While many people will make the argument that instead I should have paid the minimums and had more money invested with the net effect of reaching the liquidate/pay off point, I agree with the reasoning behind your argument: market volatility will not wipe out debt that has been cleared.
Nobody ever shows a compound interest chart with anything other than a steady interest rate (aka - 30 years of 10% return = millionaire!). A single negative or downturn can have a pretty dramatic effect on those projections.
Exactly. NYTimes had an interesting visualization a few years ago that tracked the S&P 500 to show real-world results. It really shows the effect that doldrum years can have on returns:
To fix the problem of all your payment going to interest, look at a shorter term. A 15 year mortgage is much less popular than a 30 year, but you start seeing a difference in the outstanding principle right away.
You can always get a 30 and pay extra. Why give up that flexibility. In today's market interest rates are so low the difference between the 15 and 30 rate are negligible. Also, ask yourself why the bank wants you to take the 15? It's because they make more money that way. Nit from you directly but they have more money they can loan out the faster you pay it back. Plus they have leverage with the fractional reserve system.
>>I invested with steady 12-14% returns for 10 years and then watched it all get wiped out.
I'm guessing you mean that all your gains got wiped out, not that your investments all went to zero.
On the other hand, a lot of people spent years paying on a mortgage only to get foreclosed on and lose everything including their principal. ie, that investment went to zero, or maybe even negative.
There's a lot to be said for paying down your mortgage, but remember that until you've completely paid off the mortgage all of your equity is at risk.
I invested with steady 12-14% returns for 10 years and then watched it all get wiped out. The interest rate on paying of debt doesn't change. Granted, at current rates it's a lot tougher to make the argument for mortgage interest vs other types of debt.
Nobody ever shows a compound interest chart with anything other than a steady interest rate (aka - 30 years of 10% return = millionaire!). A single negative or downturn can have a pretty dramatic effect on those projections. If you look at those same projection charts and take the amount you'd look to invest over the first 10 years, but put into into debt payment instead of investing so that you get everything paid off, then take that same amount you would have been investing, start investing it plus the money that you're no longer paying in monthly expenses then you'll find the end of the 30 year period to be an almost identical result. The only difference is that after 10 years you've eliminated virtually any risk of personal bankruptcy.
If you can find something with a guaranteed long term return higher than the mortgage interest then it's another ballgame, but those are pretty hard to come by. Right now dividend investing seems to be the closest approach that generally lets you ignore the actual interest rates over time and instead focus on building cash flow.
But this is one of those topics that is part math, part point of view and part personal comfort level. This was just my perspective.