No one has a crystal ball - if we did, then everyone would be investing in sure bets and it wouldn't pay anything.

Quote from @Crystal Smith: Quote from @Greg Kusnierz: Looking at a single family home with an in-law apartment in the basement.

No one has a crystal ball, but the least we can do is look at as many leading indicators as possible. 

Suppose it is a risk benefit analysis since my crystal ball seems to have run of batteries 😁

Some have a pre-payment penalty (paying off the principle early will require the remaining interest balance to be paid to discharge the loan.)You may find out after talking to 25 lenders that one of the possible plans you had may not be an option and instead you have to pivot to plan b.My recommendation would be to get crystal clear with what your goal is.Before coming up with your team - decided what you want/can do and reverse-engineer the solution by knowing where you want to get.

IMHO, you need to make it crystal clear to her that this is important to YOU.

They are increasing - that's the crystal ball answer :)

I'm going to grab my crystal ball!

I have no crystal ball, but I expect at some point inflation will subside and interest rates will come down.

my long term goal is financial freedom, but beyond that I can't honestly say I have a crystal clear vision of what exactly I want my portfolio to look like.