We're buying a house and have found ourselves needing to make a difficult decision. We have the 20% down on a $400,000 house ($80,000), plus an additional $60,000 that we could put towards the mortgage to lower the monthly payment. The monthly payment would be a high percentage of our income if we only put 20% down, up to 40% of take home pay (P & I, insurance, taxes, does not include maintenance). If we put the additional $60,000 towards the down payment (total of $140,000) we would lower the mortgage payment to about 28 - 30% of our take home pay, depending on the house. I'd like to get some opinions on both options
1) put only 20% down, have high monthly mortgage payment, invest the $60,000 in VTSAX
2) put a $140,000 downpayment, lower the monthly payment, miss out on investment opportunity.
I know mathematically it makes more sense to do option 1, but we value paying off the mortgage early. Opinions appreciated!