Mortgage vs investing

Paying off the mortgage is the American Dream and the first step toward retirement; it’s harder to retire with a mortgage payment blowing a hole through a fixed budget. Owning your home is the foundation of any vibrant financial plan. Until your home is unencumbered (without a mortgage) the bank still owns it in a manner of speaking (and they’ll remind you of it if you miss a payment).

Still, a home mortgage has its benefits. The traditional reasons to carry mortgage debt are bad reasons to carry the liability, but there are still a few good reasons.

We will review the traditional reasons for borrowing against your home and why the benefit is perceived rather than real. We will finish with the three reasons a mortgage can help you build wealth.

One of the most difficult decisions you can make as you struggle toward financial independence is deciding between paying off the mortgage quickly or investing the excess funds instead. The water is more muddy when we see a roaring stock market for as far back as the eye can see coupled with low interest rates. The answer seems simple and obvious: pay off the mortgage as slowly as possible and invest the difference in broad market-based index funds.

You might also think people well past the mile-marker of financial independence would have an even easier choice. Once the risk of a market decline passes due to your excessive net worth, it is tempting to automatically choose the course with the greatest opportunity for maximum gain.

Your favorite accountant has struggles with the same decision: pay it off  or invest. It all came to a head recently when the topic came up on Facebook. I gave my opinion and the fur flew. Before long my inbox was stuffed with requests for a fully fleshed out explanation of my position.

Low interest rates have raised concerns if it is proper to pay off debt early. The good news is there are ways to determine if you should pay down debt, including the home mortgage, or invest funds to accelerate net worth building. Low interest credit card teaser rates and equity lines of credit add another dimension to the ever evolving world of personal finance. There are two factors to consider when balancing between reducing debt or increasing investments: the return on the investments over the cost of capital and the risk factor.

Personal finance can learn a thing or two from corporate finance when it comes to debt and investment. Just like a business, when a household decides to pay down debt there is a tradeoff. Accelerating debt reduction takes money from other areas, mostly spending or investment, but also reduces risks associated with debt servicing. In this post I will assume you have reduced your spending to a reasonable level and the trade-offs are between debt retirement and investment only.