Congrats. I've been on a 15 year, so I hit that mark a while ago.

But the larger payments are a b%*ch.

There goes the deduction.

You're paying the principal?

Sucker.

The loss of the deduction is a sad thing. But the prospect of someday being out from under this obligation is a bright one.

I know it's not the American way, but this guy:

http://www.daveramsey.com/

lives and educates people on being totally debt-free.

When the proverbial feces hits the fan, those free and clear will be sitting pretty.

That is until congress taxes us more to compensate all the deadbeats.

I don't see how most people could ever own a home without a mortgage. And given the many tax giveaways that come with home ownership, it's too good a deal to pass up.

Owning your is an axium by the time your 50. Conservative investing the use-to-be payment is your key to a happy retirement.
Dave Ramsey might be a relifious nut but debt free is great advice.

Yard work tired me out.
Owning your home...religious nut

And given the many tax giveaways that come with home ownership, it's too good a deal to pass up.

Not that great of a giveaway...you're giving the bank $10 and probably only getting $4 for the effort.

The real payoff comes when it's, well, paid off. You're then getting a "shelter service" unavailable to a renter, who has to continue to pay taxes on some sort of income to pay their rent. You, meanwhile, are getting the equivalent of untaxed shelter service from the value of your home. (At least until the IRS figures out a way to tax it!)

You just acknowledged two aspects of the tax giveaway that do make it great: tax-free imputed income from living in your own home (better than renting mortgage or no); and the deduction for the interest. There's also a third element: the tax-exempt character of the gain you have when you sell the house (up to $250,000 of gain, $500,000 if you're married filing a joint return).

Congress has stacked the deck against renting.

It has historically also been one of the great creators of wealth in this country.

It's the only way that most Americans can invest on margin and enjoy the gains associated with it.

Even with the price adjustments, $5000 invested in my first home translated into $30,000 when I moved three years later. Mortgage payments on that house were comparable to what a 2 bdrm apartment rented for.

$20,000 invested in a home in Portland in 2002 plus mortgage payments equal to a typical rental house, and we would likely walk away with 100k at this point.

If we can ignore all of the idiocy that went on over the past decade, for the past 75 years, home ownership has been the only way most working class and middle class Americans can build real wealth.

"When the proverbial feces hits the fan, those free and clear will be sitting pretty."

On slight problem, if you need to sell your house, who's gonna be able to buy it? This is the one thing the people who sink a ton into their houses have not come to grips with.

It has historically also been one of the great creators of wealth in this country.

Of course, the tax exempt gain was one of the primary drivers of the real estate bubble - it immediately made real estate that much more valuable, and was also a likely driver of the rapid increase in new home sizes over the last two decades.