Yes, I have invested in properties. Currently we are still holding on to two. One for own stay and one for rental income.

To pay or not to pay up your housing loan, you ask.

For Own stay.
We paid outright the full price of the property upon purchase. This is a 4 bedroom condo and it is our home.

For rental income.
For this property we only paid about 30% and took loan for the rest. We do not intend to pay up the loan if the below conditions hold:

1. Housing loan interest rate is low. Currently for us, the loan interest rate is below 1.5%. It has been low for almost 7 years already. It was only 1.05% when we first took up the loan.
2. We can claim income tax relief for the housing loan interest payment
3. We can make better returns from the money instead of paying up the loan. For eg. we are earning 2.5% interest from CPF. Compounded over 7 years, the interest earned from CPF is closer to 2.8%. That is over 1% more than the housing loan interest rate.

Let's take our case with a loan of $700k. Instead of paying up, we have left the money in our CPF.

Loan interest at 1.5%. Yearly interest = $10.5k (Actually lower than this because the housing loan is on monthly rest basis)

Interest earned from CPF = 2.5% of $700k = $17.5k.

For the last 7 years, we have gained ($17.5k - $10.5k) x 7= $49k (based on simple interest calculation, more if based on compounded interest)

When compared with investment in stocks, the returns from CPF was quite respectable given the fact the stock market had gone through some bad patch the last few months.

And remember, there is still the rental income. At $40k rental income pa, the returns is $40k/$300k which is over 10%! Here I am assuming you pay up only $300k for your rental property.

What if the housing loan interest goes up? If it does go up to beyond 2.5%, then we will consider paying it off. Otherwise, don't pay up the housing loan. Enjoy returns from 2 sources!