How long will take you to pay your house?

Question

For the ones who rent: Will you keep paying the rent even after you retire? In your 80s? Or perhaps will you inherit a house/apartment?For the ones who pay a mortgage: Do you try to minimize the period needed for paying fully your place or you don't mind paying your mortgage over 20 or 30 years?

rossdavidh · Accepted Answer

I got a 30 year mortgage in 2001 (Austin, TX), then a couple years later thought better of it and refinanced to 15 years. It was grueling for a few years, but in the long run you pay far less. It has been nice to have no mortgage payment just in time for the pandemic slowdown.If you _can_ do 15 year, it's great to do so. I did have to buy in the "bad" part of town in order to do it, but in my case that wasn't really that bad, and by the time the house was paid off it had started to gentrify. I could imagine doing this in Detroit or St. Louis and really regretting it, of course. Predicting 15 years out is basically impossible; I got lucky.

znpy · Answer

I've got a ten years mortgage. The interest rate is very low and the reasonable thing to do would be to stick to the ten year route.
My gut instinct tells me to pay it off as soon as possible and enjoy keeping a full paycheck with no rent, mortgage or anything.
I think that the "don't buy a house, rent instead" is completely moronic. I've seen homeowner say that, but not believing it enough to sell their house and "invest in the market".

RNeff · Answer

Our strategy was to get a 30 year, with the lower payments. When we both had jobs, we would pay extra per month to be close to 15 year mortgage. If one of us was laid off, we pay the 30 year (on the loan) amount. We watched the rates, and refinanced a couple of times for 30 years. Being in Silicon Valley, the house appreciated every year more than the payments. So it was a place to live, and an investment.