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Line goes up? My housing payment stays the same. Line goes down? My housing payment stays the same. I was lucky inasmuch as I borrowed back when banks were practically paying us to take out loans, so if I ever have to refi I'm gonna eat shit, but I also bought what I needed instead of what I could afford and I put more than my mortgage payment into savings every month so shit is gonna have to go real bad before I'd ever be forced to refi. This is my place to live and buying it wasn't so that I could leverage it to get into the aristocrat class. I bought it to protect myself from those same aristocrats who would raise my rent every year until I'm paying twice as much as I am now for half as much house to actually live in.
The only real bummer about a housing market crash is that it will accelerate us into being a renter society overall. A few people might claw their way out, but if prices dropped by half tomorrow all that would mean is the predatory megalandlords can take twice as many houses off the market with the same money.
I also got a great interest rate, and tried to continue my practice of paying extra every month to end the mortgage early. However interest is so low that it’s just not worth it. Pre-paying makes very little difference, and I can put it to better use elsewhere. It’s crazy that even a simple savings account pays me higher interest right now
I talked about this in a different thread: the value of owning your own home isn't just a number. There's a certain psychological value to knowing that, when things seems to be going off the rails pretty regularly nowadays, they're gonna have to go off the rails, over the cliff and into the river before you can lose your home. I overpay every month too, and I see my aggressive savings plan as essentially a self-funded mortgage insurance. It's a 30 year loan, and every month I save the value of the mortgage, so I really only need things to be okay for 15 of those 30 years and I still walk away with my house.
I dunno. I calculated that paying an extra $200/mo on my $240k loan at 3.75% would wipe about 8 years off the 30 year loan. I think the interest savings is a good chunk but not a life changing amount of money when spread out over 30 years. In my view I'd rather have the security of a paid off house than the marginal potential gains from investing that money (in addition to my other investments) over the same time period.
I'm sure on paper it makes more sense to pay the minimum and invest the rest, but again I'd rather be more conservative and it's likely I'd just spend that money on something else like a new car.
The one good thing about a housing crash is that our taxes would decrease dramatically.
I'm paying about $6,000 a year in real estate taxes right now and a crash could drop that by four grand or more which would be nice even if it hurts my feelings a little bit