Please Help Me Understand How Equity Matters?

[Meggan Kaiser]

At this risk of outing my foolishness, here goes:

I trust that I should be targeting homes that are close-to or fully paid off, but I can't wrap my brain around WHY. Math stuff, I think.

If someone is struggling and they still owe over 50% on their mortgage, wouldn't they be more eager for me to take the burden off them? Or is it that I'll have to pay off their mortgage and they'll probably want me to pay the home's market(ish) value, so it's ultimately easier to not have to convince people why that just doesn't work as an investment.

If I pay off their mortgage, would the home need to be gifted to me or something? 

I'm just not able to play all this forward ...

Thanks for insight and helping me conceptualize!