Mortgages Part V – Good Debt? Dangerous Drug? Or Both?

Is mortgage debt good debt? A dangerous drug? Or both?

All debt acts like a drug.

Debt artificially changes your personal financial metabolism, accelerating personal consumption, and exaggerating investment losses and gains. 

Like any pharmaceutical, debt can be life-saving.  Without debt, you might have to wait an additional 10 years before you’ve saved up enough to own your home.  Without debt, you might not be able to eat, between now and better employment, 3 months from now.  Without debt, your further education plans never happen.  Without debt, you’d be stuck.  Debt can be awesome.

Like any pharmaceutical, debt can also be life-destroying.

A mortgage, because it’s the largest debt most of us can qualify for, is the ultimate drug.  Just because a mortgage can make the dream of home-ownership a reality, provide investment leverage, offer tax advantages and a hedge against inflation doesn’t make it any less dangerous for certain parts of the population.

Mortgages are powerful drugs and in any given group of people some of us will abuse the pharmaceutical.

i want a new drug

Please see related Mortgage posts:

Part I – I refinanced my mortgage and today I’m a Golden God

Part II – Should I pay my mortgage early?

Part III – Why are 15-year mortgages cheaper than 30-year mortgages?

Part IV – What are Mortgage Points?  Are they good, bad or indifferent?

Part VI – What happens at the Wall Street level to my mortgage?

Part VII – Introduction to Mortgage Derivatives

Part VIII – The Cause of the 2008 Crisis

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I founded Bankers Anonymous because, as a recovering banker, I believe that the gap between the financial world as I know it and the public discourse about finance is more than just a problem for a family trying to balance their checkbook, or politicians trying to score points over next year’s budget – it is a weakness of our civil society. For reals. It’s also really fun for me.

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