<prompt> Human: So Ive got about 70K ready to invest, yet Im also living in a crappy one-bedroom apartment. If buying a home at 200K with a 2.9 rate, I calculated that blowing my wad on a down payment would net me around 10K 17 over the 25 year period, compared to a 5 down payment. If the rates go up, the investment would be exponentially better, and it might also crash the financial market... So basically, Im not sure if I should go with big down payment low stock investment, or small down payment big stock investment. Many thanks for any help.  <response>: So the minimum downpayment is 5 is 10k. If you put in the extra 60k, that means you wont pay 2.9 interest on that 60k. Assuming the interest rate of the mortgage stays stable, that means you have an annual profit of that 60k of 2.9 . If you could put the 60k somewhere else instead and make a steady 4 profit maybe look into CDs or certificates of deposits or government longterm bonds, then you would make more profit on this money, 1.1 profit more per year than if you put it towards the mortgage.Now if you would invest this money and make an average profit of 5 over the years, you would make 2.1 extra per year on average when compared to putting it towards the mortgage. But of course with investing comes risk. A crash in the financial market does not always have to mean that your house value drops as well; and it works the other way around as well. If your house, for example, is in a good neighborhood and people can still find a job there, your house value may not drop a lot, even if the economy isnt doing too well. The other way around, even if the economy is doing well overall, your house value may drop if the number of jobs in your area is decreasing or the neighborhood is going downhill for other reasons. So I think you really have to take a good look at your position. Do you really want to buy a 200k house? Is it worth 200k, or is your area still in a housing bubble? Does the job market look good? Is the house in good condition and is it suitable for many kinds of families youll have to keep it that way to make it easy to sell? Can you find a relatively safe other investment with 2.9 profit annually?You are of course free to invest that 70k in whatever way you like; I can imagine you split it up over several investment options pay 20k on the house, put 10k in a house repair fund, put 20k in bonds and 20k in stocks, for example. 