[rayiner]

Not particularly. Say you have a mortgage at 4.5% (which is doable these days with great credit). If inflation is 4% (the average rate of inflation from 1980 to 2000), then anything with a real rate of return of more than 0.5% is a better place to put your money than paying down your mortgage.

[lostlogin]

Yes. It was over 10% when we got our mortgage, and although we negotiated down to 9.89%, its still pretty steep. When wages are so low and houses so expensive here (470k American dollars is average Auckland house price, arrange wage is 42k ish). I am slightly old fashioned and, well, wrong I suppose, in my aversion to debt. Right now out rates are a a bit of a low, but we are paying off debt when saving would actually be more profitable.

[rayiner]

It's not wrong. It's just a matter of your personal projections. The only thing wrong is taking action at odds with what you think will happen. E.g. if you're ranting about impending hyperinflation thanks to QE3, you should be taking out massive amounts of dollar-denominated loans and use them to buy property whose value will keep up with inflation.