Mortgage interest can be tax deductible, but there have been tax changes in recent years which have made it not as common as a tax deduction for many tax payers.
A little OT, but I'm curious. Are real estate profits taxable because your mortgage interest is also tax-deductible? Canadians do not pay capital gains on the sale of their primary residences (no matter how often they transact) but our mortgage interest is not a deduction.
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NO, that is NOT correct. That was the old rule under IRC 1034 which was repealed in 1997. IRC 121 provides an exclusion of gain from the sale of principal residence and it is not contingent upon reinvestment. However, there are some intricacies to that exclusion so it's not as simple as saying a single person gets $250K and a married couple gets $500K.
Fun to try, though. For me, I could easily handle the small quarters and confined location, constant interaction with people, food quality, etc. that come with ship life. What I couldn't do is see myself "stepping out" of being actively involved with my family, friends and community for that period of time. I actually like them all and want to be a regular part of their lives. The biggest roadblock of all though would be all that time "at leisure". It would just feel wrong. 
Productive work, at any age, is extremely satisfying to me so I'd actually probably be happier on one of those cruises as a crew member rather than a passenger. 
We still have a (smaller) mortgage, our interest rate is low, but not being able to deduct mortgage interest and property taxes anymore stinks.That's an interesting question....never thought of it that way. Whether our government wants to take some money back when we sell our homes...because they gave us a break when we had a mortgage. Makes as much sense as any of the rest of our tax law I suppose
But one thing I do know is that lots of Americans used to take the mortgage interest deduction as well as a property tax deduction. This was an especially big deal if you owned in pricier parts of the country where both property and taxes were high. However, new tax law took the property tax deduction away in 2017 with a new tax law. But... the standard deduction was taken way up...it's over 27K for couples now. And so for us, since we can't write off our property taxes anymore, and we have no mortgages....we just take the standard deduction.
Of course, with interest rates so much higher, some newer buyers with higher rates may find it more advantageous to itemize and take the mortgage interest deduction.
There is still a deduction for state and local taxes (including property tax), it's just capped at $10,000. The cap expires at the end of next year along with most of the changes implemented in the TCJA.
I didn’t realize the cap is being lifted, that’s great.
Why does it stink? You're getting a higher deduction using the standard than if you would itemize. The higher the deduction, the less taxes you pay. I would see that as a good thing.
It depends on her taxes....some people in NJ pay really high property taxes and the standard deduction is lower than what the taxes along with the mortgage and other smaller deductions would be.
In which case, she should be itemizing and claiming the mortgage interest and property tax. As far as I understand, you're still allowed to do so.
I believe it's capped at 10K for property taxes. It's not an issue for me, the Standard Deduction is more than my itemized deductions would be, but my house is only worth 800K and in my area, that's pretty modest. In my town, and especially towns bordering my town...property taxes can far exceed 10K.
We are in NJ, my husband always used to itemize, he actually did it both ways for a few years, but it never worked out better to itemize. I trust him, he’s a CFP and has worked for a major financial services company for 35 years plus an adjunct at our in state flagship for 20. I really don’t pay attention because it’s his thing.
I'd never go on a 3 year cruise where they'd let the rif raf in for 8 million dollars.
