All one has to do is a little math.
Take your mortgage payment and multiply by 12 and write that number down on a piece of paper.
Now, go get your tax return from last year and re-do it without figuring the mortgage interest deduction.
Which number is bigger?
Do that.
You can’t take your mortgage payment and multiply by 12 because that includes both capital that you’d have pay somehow anyway and interest which is the part you’d avoid by not having the mortgage. Use the interest as the basis for comparison.
Whenever I sell my home I’m going to do well as a result of appreciation. However, that sort of evens out by the amount of time and money I pour upkeep and repairs.
The bottom line is that my house really isn’t part of my portfolio, per se. Rather, it is part of my overall life-long financial strategy. Pay off the house as I approach retirement and live mortgage free.
We bought our first house kind of late in life (35) compared to our peers, but I simply can’t imagine how it helps anyone financially (except the apartment owner) by renting the rest of one’s life.
If someone buys a house as an investment akin to the stock market they may be sorely disappointed depending on the property and its location, but if you own a home as part of a lifetime investment it usually works out a lot better than renting with nothing to show but a stack of monthly rent receipts.
Are you math impaired, or logic impaired?
The only way your formula works is if the alternative is living in your car.
Better numbers: Take what you pay in rent and write that down. It’s gone, no tax deductions for that.
Then, write down what you pay in a mortgage, subtract out what you save in taxes.
The mortgage will be smaller.
Not to mention the painfully obvious point that if buying properly there is also appreciation in the home that becomes free money when you sell.
I make more in appreciation every month than I pay in mortgage.