thedynasty1998 wrote:
I know it's a matter of opinion, but I'm in the other boat.
You finance the house at 80%. Say she gets a 5% loan. Well she can then write off the interest, you are borrowing money at 5% and can reinvest the money that you are keeping in hand and say she makes 3.5%. That's a difference of 1.5%, she has cash flow, say the house appreciates at 3% and she has the interest to write off. It's a smarter move financially IMO.
Actually, using your exact numbers (5% loan, 3.5% investment, 3% home appreciation) I calculated her net worth given both cases, she buys outright or has a mortgage.
I assumed she would take the 450 rent and put it directed into the 3.5% account each month, or the remainder of the 450 after her $170ish mortgage.
I also assumed she'd put the tax savings into the savings account, and even gave her the tax savings each month (better for her) than what really happens at the end of the year.
If she were in the highest tax bracket at 35% tax savings, you are right. Her total net worth (savings+equity in house) after 5 years would be slightly higher in your suggestion ($76.3k vs $75.9k).
However, if I assume she's a "poor college student" for those 5 years like will probably be true and she will owe basically 0% in taxes so she will get no benefit from a mortgage interest deduction after 5 years she is still at $75.9k with buying outright, but only at $73.4k if she goes the mortgage route.
Matter of fact she would have to be paying around a 30% tax bracket to even "break even" between the two cases.
I'd have to guess that a 18-23 year old college student isn't in the 30% tax bracket.
I personally wouldn't do either of our sugesstions outright if I was in her situation (barely more than the $40k in the bank), I'd do a "combo" of the two as I hate having a mortgage/car payment but hate having $0 in the savings.
I would go with the loan at first and then when my savings account was sufficiently higher than the principle left on the loan, I would then pay it off. This gets the best of both worlds in that you don't deplete your savings to near zero (have that 'rainy day' fund in case something goes wrong) and you save as much as you can on interest.