Should I pay off my mortgage?

[Nate Carlson]

We have a mortgage of $280,000 at 6.5%. I have the cash to pay off the house right now, and still would have about $40k left as an emergency fund.

Should I pay off the house, invest 50% and only pay off $140k of it, or invest all of it?

I would love to refinance when/if interest rates drop, but I don't want to pay $1400 of interest each month ($200 principle) for an extended period of time. It is just hard to know what to do when I have no idea where interest rates are going.

[JD Martin]

How fast can you replenish that money? Earning 6.5% return guaranteed is not bad at all. The RE market isn't spectacular right now so there's certainly no guarantee you could do a lot better than that on rental property or other RE related investments.