In a few years, assuming you’re right about interest rates being back up, they can put the money formerly being spent on a mortgage payment into an interest bearing CD or moneymarket account and look like a genius for being paid interest instead of paying it, regardless of how “cheap” the interest they were paying might appear at that time.
What you’re advocating is the sort of advice I was hearing along about 2005, that fueled the refi and home equity line boom, home equity was regarded as money laying unused.
We see how that turned out.
What you are both talking about is opportunity costs. Which for a homeowner is whether it is better to have the money in hand (bank?) or to pay off the mortgage quicker. The big question is what does the homeowner consider the likelihood that interest rates on savings (or investments) are going to be higher than the interest rate on that loan.
Considering the way I was wrong on how interest rates would move in 2006, I am currently using maturing CDs to pay down my mortgage.
You might want to go back and read my whole post. I am not advocating cashing out your equity and going on a world cruise. But, what the hell do I know? I have never been bankrupt, nor have I ever ruined some poor suckers fleet of trucks.