If I were in your place I'd take 100k-200k in cash for the down payment. Then I'd invest 50-150k in savings bond or Treasury bonds, and keep only 50k for emergency cash. You have full healthcare, a pension and 3k a month extra, get those sleeping green employees working for you.
Also make sure you have long term care insurance. Then start enjoying awesome vacations!

Anonymous wrote:Not the poster but if he suddenly had all this mortgage interest to claim would'nt that help counter a certain amount of the taxes he'll be paying on stock sale? What am I missing here?

He's already paying taxes on the pension income and other income so the mortgage will offset that. And the mortgage interest isn't a one time thing, it will be 10-15 years (or whatever his term is). So he can sell the securities some other time and still be able to take advantage of the interest rate deduction. Better to defer the capital gains until capital gains rates come down (probably 2017 at the earliest, more likely 2018), not to mention taking advantage of the growth in the investments vs. the large cash holdings.

Uh, cash. How is this even a question.

His deduction for mortgage interest has no relation to the source of money he uses for a downpayment. Yes, it's true that the deduction could partially offset his capital gains taxes on stock sales, but he could just use the cash savings, not pay any capital gains taxes, and still get the mortgage interest deduction.

Not the poster but if he suddenly had all this mortgage interest to claim would'nt that help counter a certain amount of the taxes he'll be paying on stock sale? What am I missing here?