Mortgage-Free Living: Are Americans Paying Off Their Houses?

By CHUCK GREEN Okay, you’ve undoubtedly heard of those who play with house money. Yeah, that rocks. By the same token, you’re probably similarly familiar with those who don’t owe money on their house. No mortgage. Zippo. That not only rocks – and thunderously, at that — it brings the house down. C’mon, who doesn’t dream of having a mortgage-burning party and being free of that debt? But home mortgage burnings are nearly unheard of in present-day America as the country is now more of a mortgage-ownership society than a home-ownership society. Mortgage balances were at $12.04 trillion at the end of March, according to officials at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Center for Microeconomic Data. The free…