One of the coolest things about mortgages is that they have absolutely no correlation to the value of your home.  Think about this for a second.  When you go in and buy a home, you are assuming that the home will go up in value over time (if you don't assume that, you are making a bad choice right from the beginning).  It's funny that even in this real estate market where foreclosures are perceived as the norm, people still are optomistic about the value of their homes.  The reality is that the value of a home can rise or fall.  Either way, your mortgage has absolutely no effect on that value of your home.

There's a saying out there that goes like this, "keeping money in your home is like putting money under your mattress". Let's say you put $10,000 dollars under your mattress today.  Five, ten, or twenty years from now, that $10,000 still has exactly the same value.  It earned no interest and thus it wasn't working for you.  My point is that the value of your home will rise or fall, regardless of whether or not you have a mortgage or not. So, if you have equity, take it out and put it to work for you in an investment vehicle...you're $10,000 today could become $100,000 twenty years from now if you do.