If I take a leveraged position on a stock via margin trading and the stock goes to $0 (or, more realistically, it dips in value enough that I get a margin call) then I owe the whole balance, not just what I put up as capital. This is true of literally any leverage. And on top of that, I pay a margin rate in the form of an interest payment based on the amount of money I have outstanding beyond my capital. Sounds familiar, right? Because it's exactly identical. The only difference between a mortgage and a margin interest payment is that a mortage is amoritized across the term and is a fixed period, whereas margin interest is indefinite and acts more like a HELOC (i.e., you only pay interest on the amount that you have outstanding... and that amount can vary over time).
I absolutely hate the idea that "paying X in interest means that's money you have to earn in addition to make it worthwhile". No, it's not. It's money you are paying to free up extra capital elsewhere that can be invested more efficiently. Unless you're spending well beyond your means (which, admittedly, some people do), then paying interest on a mortgage payment should mean making much much more elsewhere by investing money you would have spent on buying a house in cash.
The logic you are using is flawed beyond all reasoning to be honest. People who are in a position to both pay back their mortgages AND invest heavily elsewhere are already rich.
As an example, if you sold a house 5 years into owning it, at current interest rates, you would only have paid down approximately 6% of the 30 year loan, so the 'leverage' of a 20% down loan would still be ~4.8:1.
> Unless you're spending well beyond your means (which, admittedly, some people do), then paying interest on a mortgage payment should mean making much much more elsewhere by investing money you would have spent on buying a house in cash.
There's no free lunch. Often, investments will get you a better return than your interest fees. Often they won't. And "much much more" is downright wrong.
No, it doesn't. Because the alternative was renting, which isn't free.
Even if you end up losing 50K on the home, all told, but if renting for the same number of years would've cost you 100K, you're ahead by 50K.