“I could likely earn a higher return by investing”
A financial advisor with skin in the game (a percentage of your money) will say the same. All I can say is that my Financial Advisor hasn’t earned his keep and my mortgage balance is at a relatively low 4 1/8 percent. Same for the Fidelity Actively Managed account I have. Going on four years and I just got back into the black last quarter.
We re-fi’d our mortgage during the last low interest rate cycle and got 2.5% 30 year fixed. Keeping that mortgage rather than paying it off preserves our cash for other things. AND, the interest fraction of the mortgage is tax deductible, so it’s an effective interest rate of 1.5%.
These days there are many excellent financial advisers who you can pay by the hour instead of with a percent of your assets.
Try it, you will like it.
;-)
P.S. If you want to see numbers to compare here they are:
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/How_much_do_you_lose_to_annual_fees_after_many_years%3F