re: Financial suicide or a good investment?

You should have more than enough to max 401ks and still have about 2 to 4k a month in after tax savings if you don't have kids/debt.

So if you're saving 60k or more a year with that mortgage you're fine.

And anyways, it isn't always the price you pay when it comes to real estate on deciding if it's a good idea. That goes from low to high end. It depends on lots of factors as bigfella kinda touched on.