The mortgage paydown does become a factor if and when you have the mobile life-style of moving frequently, every couple years or so. In that case, depending on market values, if you consistently pay money down on your mortgage, you're going to see a return on that when you re-sell the house in that you won't be losing money. If you roll closing costs into the price of the loan, you just financed an extra $2,500 over 30 years. Stupid, but most people do. So, paying down more, and then re-selling it in a few years, and having more cash in hand would be a better idea than investing money, then continually buying and re-selling properties every few years as people move and having to finance in high markets and sell in low, which is why we see so many short sales right now. If those people hadn't invested in Roth's and 401K's, they could have paid down their house, and not had the huge ding on their credit.
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