Agreed. I'm not sure what things are like in America, but when I lived in the UK I paid off my mortgage earlier than expected by paying more than the minimum m

Agreed. I'm not sure what things are like in America, but when I lived in the UK I paid off my mortgage earlier than expected by paying more than the minimum monthly mortgage payments. Once the mortgage was paid off I received the deeds to the property, and in this case it was a bundle of documents about an inch thick recording the details of the property and every single person who'd owned it since it was built in 1893 or so. The first few owners lived there for 10+ years each, then later you'd see a couple of long stretches where one family had it for 20 years, before it came to the 80s and it seemed to change hands every 1-3 years. The initial sale price was around £100, and it gradually jumped up to when I bought it for £97,500 and then sold it for £162,000. Fascinating reading, I wish I'd scanned the documents before I passed them back when I sold the place. The only time I've ever owned a property outright, though I'm getting close to having paid off a place here in Helsinki now so I'll be curious to see what I receive, if anything, when I've done so.