You have a point.

In our case, when we decided to upgrade to a condo, we could pay it off in full. But when we saw that the housing loan interest was only 1.05%, we decided to just pay the minimum required which was around 30%. Rest of the money, we left it in our CPF (earning 2.5%), FDs/Bonds (earning 1.8% to 5%) and some in shares for dividends (5%)

By not paying up fully, we were able to still make our money generate some cash flow in the meantime.

At the end of the day. You do what is comfortable for you and always live within your means.