Chiong Housing Loan or Take It Slow?

I was chatting with a friend and congratulating him on getting his BTO a while back. I got a 4 room HDB for 430k while he got a 5 room HDB for 590k (both of ours are on mature estate and what a huge difference!). One of our conversation was on how he plans to take up a 10 years HDB housing loan and repaid it ASAP. I was telling him that he should start investing and let the money compound instead but he was more comfortable paying everything off. He said that the interest saved is quite substantial which is definitely true. I told myself I would do some forecast/calculation and here it is.

Let’s make a few simple assumptions:
– 500k HDB (4/5 room does not matter)
– 10 years vs 25 years (maximum loan period, housing loan @ 2.6%)
– BTO at Jan 2016 and …