Depending on your mortgage interest rate, have you considered continuing the 18 years and investing your extra cash in index funds? Market returns ~10% over 20 years, so if your mortgage is 6% or less it's in your best 'interest' to continue.
Maybe it isn’t the best strategy. But there’s a nice feeling to know that I’ll have my house even if something bad happens.
And by bad I mean less than societal collapse. All bets are off in that situation.
During the time I was paying off my house, I did put money into the market. I just prioritized money going towards the house. Now that the house is paid off, all that prior mortgage payment money is going into the market.
* Mortgages in the US traditionally are 30 year fixed rate.
* Mortgages are deductible from federal income tax up to a certain value
* People in the US have trouble understanding things that Australians are used to, like: variable rate mortgages, fixed/variable rate mortgages, redraw accounts, lines of credit mortgages, which all Aussie lenders offer.
On the other hand, as an Aussie I was confused by:
* People still writing cheques (checks). Like, really? On paper and stuff? Haven't written a cheque in Australia since 2000 and the only time I see it is the "CHQ" button on an EFTPOS.
* Contactless credit cards are only just a thing and people don't have PINs, they still stick their card in, or swipe (?!?) and sign.
* There's no such thing as EFTPOS which goes direct to your account, there are Visa/MC debit cards that work in the field like credit cards, but you can overdraw and get fees charged.
* Discounts for cash are still a thing because the CC charge isn't available. People get things like cash back on their spend, but then pay more for the card in the first place.
* Everyone worries about their credit score that changes in magical ways depending on different weird spending rules that have incentives for taking on debt but only in certain patterns that they won't tell you.
Edit: and since you need to pay taxes on dividends in bank accounts, you would need something like 3.5-4% interest to match the gains from prepaying the mortgage at 2.75%?
But ignore the interest deduction. Even if you got a 4% return and paid long term capital gains you’d be ahead.