You have $100 extra per month. Should you pay off your mortgage early or invest?

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Interesting. Simple but interesting. Most of the best advice seems to be come in and be the simplest of all ideas. A lot of times people always try to over analyze a situation and it gets them into trouble. A simple gesture as easy as writing things down will almost always give you the clear understanding.

One of the things that the Consumer Reports article doesn't take into account (but they did say you put 20% down) is if you are paying mortgage insurance payments. It _may_ be worth it to pay the extra 100$ to get rid of the insurance payments, then invest the extra 100$ plus the extra money that would have gone to the insurance payments.

Just something to take into consideration.

There is no right or wrong answer.

That's why it's "PERSONAL" finance

Our extras always go toward the mortgage because it will have SUCH emotional satisfaction when we no longer have to make that monthly payment. Also, we're still so early on our mortgage that any extra on the princ is gonna save us an metric ton in interest. :)

Historically the stock market will give a better return than many investments, plus the mortgage payment is usually a great tax write off.

Um, that Consumer Reports link specifically says to invest, not pay off the mortgage.

"Still, the bottom line, according to our Money Lab, is this: Although there are exceptions, chances are you'll be better off putting extra money into a good mutual fund, not into prepaying your mortgage. "

...and they did it by running the numbers.

What if you are not in your 20's, what if you are in your 50's and looking toward retirement? A small mortgage paid off would result in no monthly payments when you retire.

It's certainly a very complicated choice. The article on Get Rich Slowly finds a compelling situation: Where the monthly out-of-pocket expense is much lower for renters than it is for buyers. This isn't always the case, and will depend on the situation in your local market.

Also, I don't think either article took into account the tax incentives you get for owning a home. This tends to favor home ownership. But to be fair, you also typically have to make a down payment on your home, so you also have to evaluate the opportunity cost of putting that down payment into the purchase of a home, or investing the money elsewhere and renting instead.

Where you want to live matters too -- if you want to be in an urban area near a subway, you can often find more rental choices that meet that criteria. If you want to be out in the suburbs, there are typically more ownership opportunities.

To get back to the specific situation where you already own and are considering whether to make extra down payments -- I would suggest that if you have negative equity, I would seriously consider making the extra principal payments in the hopes of getting yourself out of that situation. That way you improve your chances of being able to sell your home without it being a short sale (i.e. where the seller has to bring money to closing because he owes more than he is selling the home for).

Lots and lots of factors to consider -- you're right, there's no right answer and it's not a simple decision.

For your particular situation running the math will give you the "right" answer based on your assumptions. But are your assumptions right?

Unfortunately, the future is pretty uncertain... so you won't really know if those assumptions are good until it's too late!

If your mortgage rate is low it's a pretty easy decision- I've got a at 5% rate so even a very conservative investment strategy will yield more than paying off the mortgage early.

If your rate is higher it becomes a question of what you believe your investment return is going to be. However, no one really KNOWS.

When there isn’t a clear winner I would favor the investment route because pre-paying the mortgage doesn't reduce your monthly expenses until the house is completely paid off!

The investment route lets you build up cash immediately which could go toward living expenses in an emergency. The Investment should be much more liquid- especially if the portfolio includes some % cash and bonds.

What if you have been paying extra on your mortgage and lose your job before you have it completely paid off? If you don't have any cash reserves you could face foreclosure and lose ALL of those extra payments unless you can sell. Would you like to HAVE to sell a house in the current market?

If you had invested the money, even if you lost the house you would still have the investment money. That would make life a whole lot better wouldn’t it?

-Rick

I read somewhere that your house is not an asset but a liability, and that your mortgage is the asset. That you should never pay it down. Having equity is bad. Its not FDIC insured and is gaining 0% return. Put it to work. For some people, they need that tax write off. Its better to invest in real estate. Have someone else pay off your debt, and let 8-12% inflation attack the debt. For estimate example, $200,000k NOW while rates are so low, in 15-20 years from now after inflation its close to half and your paying in depreciated dollars. (The tenant pays).

From a purely analytical perspective using my current scenario. 30 year fixed at 6%. If I pay 100 into my mortgage every month, I will end up paying off my house 3 years earlier and saved ~$50,000 in interest paid to the bank. If on the other hand I invest that $100 in a good growth stock mutual fund, and average the return to a modest 9%, at the end of the 30 years my mutual fund should be worth ~$ 195,000. To me it makes more sense to invest it and let it build up so the compounds starts making some real money.

For those of you who don't know catalan the sentece in the picture says : I don't have a life, I have a mortgaged house.

Ramit, you made my day!

Jason - did you take into account that you can invest your would-be mortgage payment once the mortgage is paid off? You should compare the same amount spent each month over 30 years.

This might make more of a difference with a bit more money applied per month, so the mortgage gets paid off faster, and you end up with more to invest in the end.

Again, it's about running the numbers - but doing it properly. Make sure your assumptions are correct (like supposed "tax savings").

I saw a video about saving vs. investing at www.dolans.com: http://www.dolans.com/video/money_dilemmas_save_or_invest.html

I believe that you should spend the extra money and pay off any old debts. But you should never pay it off completely. If you do you will lose the tax credits.

mh - I could do that, but in 27 years, it won't leave me with a lot of time to be an aggressive investor, compound interest would have a strong foothold...on the flipside, to reanalyze the numbers if I did take my mortgage payment the last 3 years and invest it, again 9% return it comes out to ~110,000... so now the score is $165,000 versus $195,000...that's a lot closer! With it being this close it would certainly be more of a chance factor with 27 years of investing if 9% would happen....if I only averaged 8% return for the 27 years, the score becomes $165,000 versus $159,000..

Jason and mh got to what I was going to say. If you get the house paid off early and then invest the extra 100 plus your mortgage payment, you end up with a much better situation. As always, to each his own, but that 3 or 4 years of mortgage payments invested early will add up real quick further down the road.

Those of us with mortgages under 6% and the confidence that we can find a better return than that don't need to think about this for too long- invest the money. Keep in mind, though, that churning your investments can lead to tax consequences that could wipe away incremental gains.

Simple, pay it on the mortgage. By making 1 extra payment per year, you shave off 7 years of interest to your lender. Double that and you cut your time in half. You build equity faster and then you can spend that extra money on things you really want, and save yourself hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest. Simple table. Take the price of the house, triple it, and that's the true cost of owning a home. Cut that time/interest down, and you really have a bargin. Check out the mortgage calculators on any site.

What happens if you apply half to paying off the loan and half to investing?