This is kind of like asking "Should I eat a chocolate or vanilla ice cream cone, or a piece of pie, or should I skip dessert altogether?" 

I was told by the first lender I spoke with that if you make ONE additional P&I payment a year (whether in one lump sum, or spread out throughout the year), you shave off nearly 7 years of the 30 year mortgage term.  

Also shopped around for snow/lawn and shaved another $40 per month.

Maybe in KY you can cut corners and shave off some time, but we don't do business like that around here.

Cash rules everything around me and it's all about the cream! 

This is one of the main reasons why I love to fill my apartments in Spring/Summer because come winter you are not getting the "cream of the crop" in your tenant applicant pool.. most tenants do not like to move in the dead of winter or after school has started for their children...

A non-complicated financial life is one in which borrower(s) have jobs with W2 income and/or social security income and no significant outside income and they own no other assets except for autos and household goods and possibly retirement accounts.  

I agree with Dale Osborn that new homes are definitely not the way to go as there is no outside banks financing them for anyone other than the cream of the crop.

The borrower(s) may have initially purchased the property as one of the following: a natural person; an eligible inter vivos revocable trust, when the borrower is both the individual establishing the trust and the beneficiary of the trust; an eligible land trust when the borrower is the beneficiary of the land trust; or an LLC or partnership in which the borrower(s) have an individual or joint ownership of 100% The original purchase transaction is documented by a HUD-1 Settlement Statement, which confirms that no mortgage financing was used to obtain the subject property.

Again, life happens so this is cream and I wouldn't include this in your decision making.It's tough to buy right these days but it can still be done in the right markets, I'm sure.