Buying a less expensive home (as you seem to have done) and taking on an 80% LTV mortgage is okay because that’s pretty much the only way it can be done. Still, the debt is collateralized, and with 20% down, you’re less likely to be underwater. We’ve seen what can happen when everybody leverages to the max to buy the first home, the second home, the third home, etc. Everybody ends up losing, even those who were conservative, but whose market was affected by all of the speculation and leverage that was being used.
You say that the majority of people who use leverage benefit from it, but outside of housing/real estate **during normal, non-bubble periods,** I’m willing to bet that most people who use lots of leverage (outside of conservative home loans) end up in a bad place because of it. Do you have any data to show that the majority of people who use leverage end up benefiting from it?
And I disagree completely with your assertion that you have to take such high risks in order to be financially independent. That’s a sure way to go broke, not be financially independent.
