I strongly disagree with the way you paint this - especially the irrational “the math is against you”.
if given someone who unjudiciously spends money, then I agree that paying off a house is a fantastic way to save (versus fancy car, excessive holidays). But this is a psychological battle, and has relatively little to do with finance.
Critically, many people have very little diversification and instead they only have two financial instruments: their job and their home. Investing money in a third instrument (equivalant to retirement savings?) instead of paying off principal should make sense if expected returns are similar to mortgage rates.
For those that have the skill and strength to invest carefully, the equation simplifies down to comparing your mortgage rate versus your expected investment returns. If investment returns exceed interest costs, then not paying principal and instead investing, is the prudent thing to do. There are other life circumstances that affect expected returns e.g. age and capacity to deal with market volatility.
The cliché that you should pay off mortgage principal before anything else is mindless, and may come from the past when interest rates were higher?
> ...especially the irrational “the math is against you”
nod I did not say what was in my brain which I followed up in another comment; it's all about time scale - if your plan is meager (+$100/mo) you only shave 5y off your final loan cost, which could probably be beat with a mutual fund instead. If your plan is aggressive (pay off in 5y) the return on investment for the following 25y using the full "mortgage payment" works out (money makes money) - but you must be disciplined and determined.
Edit: also just to share, I completely underestimated the reduction in cost of living which happened when I moved from a location where houses were very expensive to somewhere much more modest ($$$) but same type of community (nice street, nice neighbors, low crime, etc.). I ended up saving a lot of extra money by accident in just regular life things which I was able to roll over into the extra payoffs. I feel this accident in my math helped work in my favour very significantly to my overall plan, it took me a bit of "where is this extra money coming from?" reflection to realize my initial mistake in the plan. This could of course cut both ways, should you move into a more expensive community with a higher cost of living in your new house.
if given someone who unjudiciously spends money, then I agree that paying off a house is a fantastic way to save (versus fancy car, excessive holidays). But this is a psychological battle, and has relatively little to do with finance.
Critically, many people have very little diversification and instead they only have two financial instruments: their job and their home. Investing money in a third instrument (equivalant to retirement savings?) instead of paying off principal should make sense if expected returns are similar to mortgage rates.
For those that have the skill and strength to invest carefully, the equation simplifies down to comparing your mortgage rate versus your expected investment returns. If investment returns exceed interest costs, then not paying principal and instead investing, is the prudent thing to do. There are other life circumstances that affect expected returns e.g. age and capacity to deal with market volatility.
The cliché that you should pay off mortgage principal before anything else is mindless, and may come from the past when interest rates were higher?