Reply #59: Not especially shocking

[skippysmom]

Prices are outrageous in so many places -- there's no way in hell some of these people can make the money they do and afford these houses. We make about 20K above the median income for our county and could reasonably afford only the smallest, cheapest house in the "worst" town in the county. (I put "worst in quotation marks because this is Cape Cod, and the "worst" town is still nicer than many towns in other areas.) So there must be a lot of overextended people out there.

We bought the house because rent in our area would be the same as our mortgage payment (about $1200 including taxes and insurance). We had the full 20% down payment which really helped. Plus we have cats and were tired of getting the runaround from landlords -- paying pet fees, getting looks when we said we had 3 cats, etc. So we bought. Thankfully the house is appreciating nicely and if we sold we'd get a nice little profit after only 18 months.

Self-escrowing is a good idea. You do make back the interest -- at least a little -- and save the escrow fees that some companies want to charge.

We do see a bit of a tax deduction -- however, as we pay less and less interest as the mortgage amortizes, and the standard deduction goes up -- that will likely disappear.

We also pay an extra $200/month toward principal. I really want to be mortgage free by 50 (I'm 32 now). Paying off your mortgage is one of the best ways to ensure that your retirement expenses are lower.