Like with anything else, simple advice is never appropriate in all circumstances. It all depends upon your particular situation. Today's personal finances are much more complex. A house and mortgage are not just a component of a proper financial strategy. You need to examine all of the other factors of your finances such as your assets, liquidity, tax situation, credit, and your credit availability. 
Your mortgage is not "just" the loan on your home; it is an important piece of your overall financial picture. A better way to look at your mortgage is to examine it in the context of your entire portfolio. A piece of real estate is an asset to your portfolio. The mortgage on that piece of real estate determines how much of that asset is leveraged versus how much is tied up with real cash.
Sure, you might have some equity or not at this point but your payments are the same, your tax deductions may be less and you still have x amount in savings and are struggling to put enough money away for retirement. Ask yourself, has much changed in your life since your property value had increased so dramatically over the previous years or you refinanced last time to pay off high interest credit cards and are they still gone?
How long would you be able to survive if you lost 100% of your "job" income right here, right now? 1 month? 2 months? 3 months if you're lucky? Unfortunately, home equity doesn't seem so great now, does it? Bet you wish you had some investments working for you, right or a nice cushion of liquid cash available to use as needed?
Right now is the best time to start planning. Ask your clients have they been meaning to buy real estate as part of their retirement plan or are they working with a good finanical team who is going to give them sound advice that works in the long run and not a quick fix?
Planning isn't always the most fun thing to do but if your clients just lost their income source or their mortgage payments are starting to adjust and they haven't done a plan, it may be too late to save their home and now they have to sell it or foreclose.
It is important to be a part of the solution and not simply bury our head and hope things work out, especially in today's economy. From my experience, most people want help but they simply need some encouragement to do so.
Wouldn't it feel great to know that YOU are the reason your client gets to have a fabulous retirement or the reason their children get to go to college??? Be the foundation of their finanical team, help them change their perspective and see a new light at the end of a long and often dark tunnel!!
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