If the house is paid off, you’re only on the hook for the taxes, which will amount to $500/month +/- a couple hundred a month.
It’s a cash flow issue, risk issue, tax issue and time management issue. The paid off living arrangement minimizes the negative impacts of all four of those issues.
Sure, you could extract money, invest it, make more, pay taxes, spend time fretting, managing the investment etc, but it’s all on leverage.
