<prompt> Human: So I live in a US city that has had a booming housing market for 5-7 years. 6 years ago, I bought a house around 150k and today it has an appraised value of 194k with not a huge amount of remodeling. A friend of mine is purchasing his first house 180k this month and has a lot of cash to put down. He was going to put down the 20 to avoid PMI and then has has another 15k-20k he was going to throw at the mortgage to save in the cost of interest in the loan.So, I have been telling him it may be smarter to put your extra money elsewhere... I believe this because me and a few of my realtor friends are under the assumption that the housing market will fall in the next couple of years as it seems this growth is a little ridiculous. So my question is if you bought a house today knowing that value would decrease in the coming 1-3 years, would it be worth throwing extra cash at a mortgage to save on interest costs.  <response>: Personally, Im unwilling to gamble on a collapse.While inevitable, it may also include a sudden uptick in unemployment and lay offs.If it was me, Id throw as much at my mortgage as possible to lower my debt burden. After you build up an emergency fund, anyway. 