Predatory lending with a government stamp of approval.
The 50-Year Mortgage Is Financial Insanity Disguised as Affordability
Trump is reportedly floating the idea of 50-year mortgages as a solution to the housing crisis. Let me be blunt: this is one of the dumbest ideas I've heard in 20 years of finance.
This isn't innovation. It's predatory lending with a government stamp of approval.
The Math That Should Terrify You
Let's run the numbers on a $300K loan because apparently, we need a calculator to expose terrible ideas:
30-year mortgage at 6%: $1,799/month
50-year mortgage at 7% (higher rate for risk): $1,805/month
Wait, what? The longer mortgage costs MORE per month because lenders aren't idiots. They price risk. A 50-year loan is riskier, so the rate goes up. You get zero monthly savings and you're locked in for two decades longer.
But let's pretend the government mandates the same 6% rate for both (spoiler: they won't):
50-year mortgage at 6%: $1,579/month
Great! You save $220 monthly. Sounds reasonable until you do the full math:
You'll pay an additional $300,000 in interest over those extra 20 years.
Read that again. You save $220 a month but pay $300,000 more over the life of the loan.
That's not affordability. That's financial suicide with a payment plan.
Why This Is Predatory, Not Helpful
Here's what 50-year mortgages actually do:
They trap you in debt for half a century. You'll be paying off a house you bought at 30 when you're 80 years old. Your kids will be middle-aged before you own your home.
They eliminate equity building. In the first 15 years of a 50-year mortgage, nearly every dollar goes to interest. You're renting from the bank with extra steps.
They create negative equity traps. Housing markets cycle every 10-15 years. With a 50-year mortgage, you'll be underwater every time the market dips because you have no equity cushion.
They assume nothing goes wrong. Job loss? Medical emergency? Divorce? Good luck. You're chained to a payment for 50 years with no escape hatch.
Who Actually Benefits? (Hint: Not You)
Banks love this idea. They get 20 extra years of interest payments. They get to lend to people who can't actually afford homes, knowing the government will probably bail them out when it goes sideways.
Politicians love this idea. They get to claim they "solved" the housing crisis without actually building more homes or addressing zoning laws. It's a headline, not a solution.
You know who doesn't benefit? You. The person stuck paying $300K extra in interest while watching your friends who bought with 30-year mortgages own their homes outright while you're still writing checks.
The Real Problem (And Why This "Solution" Makes It Worse)
Housing is unaffordable because we don't build enough of it. The U.S. faces a shortage of between 1.5 million and 7.1 million homes, depending on how you measure it. Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, the National Association of Realtors, Freddie Mac, and the National Low Income Housing Coalition all confirm the same basic truth: we're millions of homes short of what Americans need.
Zoning laws are insane. Restrictive single-family zoning, often dating back to 1920s-era exclusionary policies, limits where multifamily housing can be built. Studies show that stricter land use regulation raises housing prices and increases the cost of living. Economists Chang-Tai Hsieh and Enrico Moretti estimate that housing restrictions cost U.S. workers $1 trillion in reduced wages by making it unaffordable to relocate to higher-productivity cities.
NIMBYs block every development. "Not In My Backyard" activists, typically affluent homeowners, oppose new housing construction through local zoning boards and permitting processes. Research shows that conservatives and liberals are equally likely to oppose new developments in their neighborhoods. In cities like New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, NIMBY opposition has resulted in some of the slowest housing construction rates in the country. Over the past decade, New York City added just 30.6 housing units per 1,000 residents, compared to Atlanta or Miami's roughly 140 housing units.
Interest rates are high. Supply is low. As of July 2025, the average U.S. home value is $368,581. Mortgage rates have stayed at twenty-year highs, creating a "lock-in effect" where homeowners with low-interest mortgages are reluctant to sell, further limiting housing supply.
Extending mortgages to 50 years doesn't fix any of that. It just makes you comfortable being broke longer.
It's like treating a broken leg by giving someone crutches and telling them to never fix the break. Sure, they can walk around. But they're still broken.
What You Should Do Instead
If you can't afford a 30-year mortgage, you can't afford the house. Full stop.
Wait. Save more. Buy less house. Move to a cheaper market. Do literally anything except sign up for 50 years of debt.
Because here's the truth nobody wants to say: The 50-year mortgage isn't designed to help you buy a home. It's designed to help banks extract maximum profit while politicians pretend they did something.
Don't fall for it.
Your future 80-year-old self will thank you for having the discipline to walk away from this trap.
Sources:
Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies: "Estimating the National Housing Shortfall" (2024)
National Low Income Housing Coalition: "The Gap 2025: A Shortage of Affordable Homes"
U.S. Chamber of Commerce: "The State of Housing in America" (2025)
National Association of Realtors: "Housing Shortage Tracker" (Q4 2024)
Brookings Institution: "Make it count: Measuring our housing supply shortage" (2025)
Hsieh & Moretti economic research on housing restrictions and wage impacts
CNN Business: "New York and California are taking on the NIMBYs" (2025)
NYU Furman Center housing construction data
