Thanks for the reply. The mortgage was as much for current living expenses as current deductions. He is planning to maximize deferred comp to increase his retirement as much as possible in the short time remaining before retirement. But his gross salary next year would only be about $57,000. With $31,000 maxing out his deferrals, that didn't leave much to live on even including the $250,000 non taxable exclusion from the house sale with a conservative earnings of 4%.
The real estate taxes where he expects to move plus about $1000 in mortgage interest would put him over his standard deduction easily even with the blind additional deduction.
I want to meet with him to discuss how tweaking one aspect of this affects the others and show him that there probably is no perfect scenario. He will need to make some decisions. I do believe that his decision to maximize his retirement funding is correct, however, as he has fewer options than most folks.
Thanks again!