At what age should you pay off your mortgage

Deciding to pay off your mortgage before retirement is something many near-retirees wrestle with. Ditching the debt would feel oh so good, but would you be imperiling your long-term security in retirement? With home insurance rates and property taxes increasing, it's fair to ask if your home could become unaffordable if you pay a mortgage on top of those costs.

In a recent conversation with a long-term client, Rush Griffith, a Schwab financial planner in Dallas, discussed a client grappling with one version of this decision: paying off her mortgage or keeping her money in the stock market.

Rather than watch her investments weather the stock market's ups and downs, the soon-to-be retiree sold a significant portion of her stocks and paid off her roughly $135,000 mortgage.

“When I asked her, ‘Which scenario would make you most happy?’ she quickly shouted out that no longer having a mortgage would be reaching a milestone she never thought was possible,” says Griffith.