Jessica Lanning has a radical idea: Don't pay off your mortgage. Don't pay a down payment if you can avoid it. Carry as much debt as you can comfortably pay, even if you could get a smaller mortgage, and put that debt -- that extra money -- to work for you in the stock market, in savings or in high-yield investments that can earn you more over the long run than simply buying and paying off your home.
Lanning, a San Francisco certified mortgage consultant and financial strategist, has spread this new debt gospel to more than 1,000 Bay Area residents, mortgage brokers, certified financial planners and real estate agents over the past 10 years, and she expects to share it with 1,000 more before the end of June.
