<prompt> Human: My husband and I are beginning to plan to buy our first house in the next year or two. Our combined annual income is 170K, and we have about 80K in non-emergency savings mutual funds. He also has about 13K in student debt at a 2.3 interest rate 140mo payment; so far we havent just fully paid off the student debt because the mutual fund interest is vastly outpacing it. We both have 800 credit scores.Ive been playing around with mortgage calculators and it seems like if we want to buy this year which is pretty desirable for us personally, then we are mostly hurting for downpayment. It seems obviously better to put 13K towards the downpayment on the 4 mortgage than finishing off the 2 student loans.Am I missing any externalities here? As we go to find a lender, will having the student loan debt hanging around hurt our options? Would paying it off be beneficial at all when our credit scores are already excellent?  <response>: That student loan debt isnt an issue. Its a small amount compared to your income and its at a low interest rate. Aside from the psychological benefit, its perfectly reasonable to pay the minimum for the lifetime of the loan and invest instead after down payment. 