I can admit that I am one of them.
What? That’s terrible You could have so much more leverage. You love leverage, or are you secretly very conservative?
“Nationwide, 27.7 million homeowners have no mortgage or 37 percent of all ownership situations.”
I’m surprised at how high that is.
Even in 2006, 23% homeowners are mortgage free. Percentage of retiree homeowners could be more than 23%. So 29% free and clear is not that surprising. The increase from 23% to 29% might be due to fire sale prices 6 years ago
“New census stats show 29 percent of all owner-occupied residences in the state were mortgage-free last year, up from 23 percent a decade ago.”
I don’t think any bank would allow me to borrow against my primary because my already over leveraged… 
Mortgage free owners have a much lower income than mortgaged owners. Majority of the mortgage free owners are retirees living on social security and other retirement income.
“California’s mortgage-free crowd must heavily appreciate their lack of house payments as their median household income of $60,000 is well below the $103,000 median income of a mortgaged household statewide.”
I can buy over some of your houses at deep discount should you have any financial issue, cash and no hassle 
, doing this only because I treat you as a very good friend.
I’ll let the bank foreclose them. Highest bidder get it 
With friends, you shouldn’t be too concerned about money 
Rest be assured the houses would be well taken care. I am not doing that for money, just wanting to be helpful for a friend in need 
wuqijun said “My Real Estate: 24.9% gain”, do you still see value in buying at this price? What if the market goes south? !!
If you wanted my houses that desperately, my offer to trade 4 East Bay houses for your house in Cupertino is still good
Lots of legs left to run. Prices in my area haven’t even gotten back to the breathless highs of… 2005 yet!!! 
I know a woman who had a $100m worth of property and $50m in loans. Lost everything… Leverage was lethal in 2008…
Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.
Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.
What counts for most people in investing is not how much they know, but rather how realistically they define what they don’t know.
That’s why my primary is free and clear
So is it wise to leverage some properties to the maximum and pay off mortgages on other properties? That way, you only lose heavily leverage ones. The free and clear ones will be yours forever.
Losing a 50% leveraged portfolio may suggest some serious mismanagement. If it’s a single property of $100M, it lacks diversification. It’s better to own multiple properties with different levels of leverage.
This is the strategy that was advised by the professionals. Lose those max leveraged ones and owned the clear and free ones.
Also depends on market condition. There was no need to be conservative at all back on 2011. Now maybe 10% conservative. If Bay Area prices doubled again maybe 20% conservative…
Wait, you guys keep waffling on this subject. I could have sworn you cats were once advocating not to live mortgage free, but now you are??? Whatever… I will still pay more on my granted sweet 2.5% loan each money so that if nothing else changes my primary Sunset home will be free and clear too.
If you have $50m why have any leverage?.. In fact why take risks it you are all ready rich?
Risk and gambling are addictive… But greed can bite you in the ass…
The woman I mentioned is now insane… Her greed and stupidity drove her nuts…
Of course Trump loves leverage…He wants to leverage up the US and then default just like he suggested for Puerto Rico … He is a professional thief… stealing money from lenders… And they kept giving him more money after 4 bankruptcys