How many of you retirees still have a home mortgage (purposefully)? What is your mindset?

I am retiring in 3-4 years. Built a house last year, larger in size, and with more amenities. Went from no mortgage to some mortgage. 15 year, 2.25%.
Previously did not have a mortgage for 8 years.

My thoughts were, I would have to carry the mortgage, which is easily doable, carry one car note, and no credit card debt (i.e. I pay it off monthly) till I'm 62, then let my SS cover my mortgage payment to the end. At that rate, no real interest in paying it off early other than not liking to make a payment.

Being that close to retirement, I figure worst case, I would take enough out at retirement to pay it off if I had to/wanted to when I retire, but I generally do not plan to do that right now. Could change tomorrow though.


P.S. I do not recommend upsizing in house at retirement. However, the wife and I have no heirs, so it's sort of the "spending your kids inheritance" mindset.

Our will state that 25% goes to our church, and the other 75% split among 2 pet shelters we have adopted from.

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For those who maintain a home mortgage in retirement, please share your mindset for doing so. That peace of mind is hard to ignore no matter what financials say.

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Wife and I moved to Santa Fe end of October 2020, bought a house mid-December, financed roughly half of purchase @ 2.75%/30 years. Just re-fi'd yesterday with a 1.625% 7 yr ARM, 30 yr amortization, limited closing costs, no appraisal, through Schwab/Rocket. House is roughly up $100k in value since December according to long time RE agent but we have probably put ~ 20k in improvements since purchase.

To me it's a no brainer, we own a shite ton of investments that throw off multiples of what the mortgage rate is and don't see the point in paying it off. We will know within the 7-year fixed rate time frame whether we are staying here longer term and can pay it off then prior to rate re-set or perhaps pay off partially and let it ride depending on future rates and investment environment. Paying under 1k/month on ~ $700k house (no escrow), that's very low cost. I don't care if people agree with the strategy or not, I know it will work out for us. It's rather pointless to lock up all that cash in a house (especially not knowing you will spend 10-30+ years in the house) just to say your mortgage free especially if you have other investments earning significantly more than the interest cost of the mortgage. YMMV.

My parents moved to FL in 2019. They were retired for at least 5 years at that point.

Their house in GA had been paid off for several years, sold it for $290k but their house in FL they bought was $445k. Instead of just liquidating a lot of investments to pay the difference and getting a huge tax bill, they took a 15 year like 150k mortgage out at a low rate, and they itemize so they can deduct the interest anyways. Just makes more sense this way instead of paying so much in taxes on 150k in pretax investment accounts to pay the difference.

Sort of the same boat, but everyone is going to be in a different space. I'm retiring (at 52, but want to find something else to do) in a few months. Bought a new 'gonna die in this house' for more than what I just sold my current house for. Let's say the house I bought was 700k and I sold my current house for 500k, which was paid off. I now have about $400k after all is said and done and about 400k left on the new mortgage. We could come close to paying it off and being mortgage free again.

My financial advisor says that it would be best to put maybe 200k back into house equity, recast our loan to whatever we are comfortable a month paying. If you can get down around the 2.5-2.75% rate, it doesn't make sense on paper to pay the house off. Although the market is shite atm, the money you are paying towards the mortgage could go into any number of investment accounts and earn you far greater wealth that will allow paying the mortgage down later on. Unless of course the market takes a serious dive and all that. But what goes down, eventually goes up again.

It really comes down to wanting the stability of a paid house in the weird times we are in vs building wealth with extra money that you put into the home. Our advisor supports whatever we do, but instead of paying off the house (which was what we wanted initially), we are compromising with his advice and going 50/50.

I plan to have the home paid off for peace of mind.

Part of the equation is interest rates. Lower interest rates make sense not to pay off early assuming you’d invest the difference.

I personally hope we get back to more normal interest rate environment but we’re addicted to cheap money.

Not retired yet, but hope to in the next 10 years or so and I will definitely have the house paid off before then. But I don't care if the numbers say its a dumb thing to do. I like the piece of mind and knowledge of being debt free. That is worth far more to me than the time value of my money invested vs. paying off my low interest mortgage.

Retirement is 4 years away. Built new home cash last year on acreage. Zero debt w/ savings and 401k. Plan on buying a new truck before retirement and pay cash. I want peace of mind when I pull the plug on working.

Just sold the home we raised our kids in and bought a smaller house with the cash and pocketed the extra $300,000.

Have no debt anymore.

No college loans for wife or kids.
No car payments.

Have another two rental properties that are paid off and generating money as well.

Wife and I are in our 50’s but I plan to work for 25 more years. I love my job.

I sleep so much better these past few months with no mortgage. I don’t care about the financial loss that I may be taking over the next 25 years.

Planning my expenses has never been easier. My wife and I have an extra $3500 to spend every month with no mortgage.