The 50-Year Mortgage: Completely Fine or a Total Flop?

Mortgage experts are divided on the wisdom of a 50-year mortgage. No one seems to think it's the key to making homeownership affordable.

Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free.

This week's newsletter takes a look at the Trump administration's proposal to create a 50-year mortgage product to rival the 30-year mortgage that became standard during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration. Mortgage analysts are split on whether this is a benign, even beneficial, idea or a complete catastrophe.

Also covered this week is the surefire catastrophe that is the proposed D.C. ballot initiative that would freeze rents and tighten the city's inclusionary zoning requirements.

Last but not least, we cover a new lawsuit from a California developer whose apartment project was singled out for exclusion from the state's streamlining of its environmental review laws.

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The Pros and Cons of a 50-Year Mortgage

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump issued a Truth Social post appearing to promise that he would one-up FDR by creating the 50-year mortgage.

In short order, Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte issued his own X post saying that the administration was in fact working on creating a 50-year mortgage, which would be "a complete game changer."

Thanks to President Trump, we are indeed working on The 50 year Mortgage—a complete game changer. https://t.co/HZDPzO0qJG

— Pulte (@pulte) November 8, 2025

Currently, the standard mortgage—the type that government-supported enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy from lenders and then sell to investors—has a 30-year term.

What the Trump administration appears to be saying is that they want to change federal rules and regulations to allow Fannie and Freddie to also purchase 50-year mortgages.

The idea is proving divisive, even within the White House. Politico reported on Monday that the 50-year mortgage was Pulte's sole initiative and is receiving a lot of backlash.

The FHFA chief reportedly showed up to the Oval Office with a poster comparing FDR's 30-year mortgage to a Trump 50-year mortgage, and Trump posted an image of the poster a few minutes later.

Internally, White House officials are accusing Pulte of selling Trump "a bill of goods," per Politico. The White House is reportedly being inundated with angry phone calls from critics of the 50-year mortgage.

The advantage of a 50-year mortgage would be lower monthly payments for borrowers. Lower monthly payments would mean more people might be able to afford a mortgage.

The disadvantage would be that borrowers would end up paying more interest over the life of a 50-year mortgage. They'd also build equity more slowly.

The wisdom of this tradeoff, and its economy-wide consequences, have proven divisive among mortgage experts.

RedFin chief economist Daryl Fairweather highlighted a few of the downsides in a lengthy X post. Interest costs could end up being twice as high on a 50-year mortgage. By building equity more slowly, homeowners would have a harder time financing a move by selling their house. Increasing the pool of potential homebuyers would also increase home prices, she says.

President Trump is considering a new 50-year mortgage product to address housing affordability. As Redfin's chief economist, it's my job to look at the data and the trade-offs of such a proposal.
On the surface, the 50-year loan aims to lower monthly payments, potentially helping… pic.twitter.com/0JmmN9LSJO

— Daryl Fairweather, PhD | Chief Economist (@FairweatherPhD) November 10, 2025

Kevin Erdmann, a Mercatus Center–affiliated scholar who writes about mortgage and housing policy on his Substack, is more sanguine.

"If [a 50-year mortgage] is an option that works for somebody, there's no reason to not make it available," he says.

Erdmann is also skeptical of the idea that the availability of a 50-year mortgage would increase home prices much. He notes that home prices stayed essentially flat in recent years, even as mortgage rates (and therefore monthly payments) jumped from 3 percent to 7 percent.

If prices didn't fall as monthly payments spiked, one shouldn't expect them to rise as monthly payments fall. "The monthly payment isn't a very powerful factor moving [home prices]," he says.

Despite the debate about whether this is a worthwhile financial product, there does seem to be a consensus that a 50-year mortgage would not make homeownership more affordable, generally. Enabling more home construction through supply-side reforms is what's necessary to bring home prices down.

Whether a 50-year mortgage ends up happening is a big open question. In order to make this standard product, the federal government would have to change regulations to allow Fannie and Freddie to purchase 50-year mortgages, which they're currently prohibited from doing.

There's some debate about whether this would require congressional action or if the administration could do it unilaterally.

Trump himself seemed ambivalent about the idea during a Monday Fox News appearance, saying that "it's not like a big factor. It might help a little bit."

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Feeling Singled Out

Earlier this year, the California Legislature passed a sweeping reform to the state's environmental review law intended to speed up the approval of apartment projects. Except for one apartment project, that is.

Late last month, Santa Barbara developer The Mission LLC sued the state of California and the City of Santa Barbara on the grounds that one of its projects had been unconstitutionally singled out for exclusion from regulatory relief being generally offered to urban apartment projects.

Assembly Bill (A.B.) 130, passed as part of this year's budget package, exempts apartment projects being built within incorporated cities and urbanized county land from the environmental study requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

CEQA-mandated studies can run hundreds of pages, even for something as simple as an apartment building or new subdivision, and take years to complete. Third parties can stretch things out longer by suing over allegedly insufficient CEQA studies.

The law has proven a major roadblock to new home construction and thus a target of the state's YIMBY (yes in my backyard) reformers, who uniformly cheered the passage of A.B. 130.

Not so happy is The Mission. That's because of a second trailer bill folded into the budget package, S.B. 158, which deprives projects of a CEQA exemption if they're being built in cities of between 85,000 and 95,000 people, in counties of between 440,000 and 455,000, and if they're being built next to a historic landmark, and if part of the project parcel abuts wetlands or creeks.

The only project in California that would appear to meet that definition is The Mission's proposed 270-unit project, which would be built next to Santa Barbara's historic mission building.

The Mission's project has been hotly controversial ever since it was first proposed in January 2024. City politicians have called it a "horrendous nightmare" and a "monstrosity."

The author of S.B. 158 is Sen. Monique Limón (D–Santa Barbara), the incoming Senate President Pro Tem, whose district includes the city of Santa Barbara.

The Mission's lawsuit argues that by passing a law that applies to just one project, the Legislature violated the U.S. and California constitutions' equal protection guarantees.

A general trend in California housing law in recent years has been to shift some land use decisions up to the state level in order to deprive localities of discretionary powers to modify or deny some types of housing projects.

It would be a real shame if the Legislature developed a habit of carving out exceptions for individual projects itself instead.

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A D.C. Rent Freeze?

Activists in Washington, D.C., are proposing a ballot initiative that would impose an immediate two-year rent freeze, if passed, and freeze rents during times of high inflation after that.

The ballot initiative, which is being sponsored by the group More Affordable D.C., would also lower the income limits and rents that could be charged on affordable housing units.

"Housing costs have risen faster than wages in D.C. for years. Our rent freeze gives immediate relief to over 200,000 renters who are struggling to stay in place," said Salim Adofo, the proposer of the ballot initiative, in a Monday press release.

D.C. already has a rent control law that caps rent increases in multifamily buildings built before 1975.

The current law, like many rent stabilization policies, allows landlords to raise rents by two percent plus the rate of inflation. The idea behind it is simply that if inflation is going up, so are landlords' costs of operating their buildings.

The More Affordable D.C. proposal would completely invert this relationship by freezing rents when inflation gets above 6 percent.

The initiative would also tighten the District's inclusionary zoning requirements. Right now, new developments in the city typically must include below–market rate units that are affordable to people making between 50 percent and 80 percent of the median family income.

The More Affordable D.C. proposal would cut the income limits on IZ units to 45 percent of the median family income. It would also require more IZ units to be family-sized two- and three-bedroom units.

Taken together, these provisions would represent a significant tightening of D.C.'s rent control and IZ policies. Deepening affordability requirements on new developments and applying floating rent controls to all units would almost certainly discourage new housing construction.

That would be a huge step back for a city that actually managed to build a fair amount of housing in recent years and has kept rental prices somewhat in check as a result.

---

Quick Links

• In the U.K., the NIMBYs are using AI tools to file planning complaints. In some ways, the future looks a lot like the past.

NEW important article from @AishaKDown and @Robert_Booth: could the new AI-powered Objector service slow delivery of homes still further? https://t.co/uRsVLgSkwn pic.twitter.com/yY2hsrHhQ7

— YIMBY Alliance (@yimbyalliance) November 9, 2025

• Saudi Arabia's completely ludicrous The Line project, a proposed linear 100-mile-long city to be built in the middle of the desert, is being dramatically scaled back after running into financial and practical hurdles, according to a new Financial Times investigation.
• The housing questions on New York City's ballot all passed last week. You can read my coverage of the vote here.
• Someone has created a pretty cool map of the top 10 most densely populated two-mile blocks in each U.S. city. The quick fall in population densities as one goes down the list is pretty remarkable.

Amazing piece of geography trivia in map form. This graphic ranks the 10 most densely populated 2-square-mile, 4-sided polygons in US cities. Fun to look at. Source: https://t.co/2rsH6EpnXo pic.twitter.com/JdkujTfnOp

— Simon Kuestenmacher (@simongerman600) November 7, 2025

• The Los Angeles City Council considers tightening the city's rent stabilization law.
• New York's real estate industry attempts to ingratiate itself with the city's new socialist mayor.

Comments

[Chumby]

A 50-year mortgage sounds mega gay. But if a lender and a borrow want to do it, they should be allowed. These should not be govt insured or bailed out.

A 5-year or 10-year mortgage makes sense.

[Bhagwad]

No lender in their right mind would give a person a 30 year or a 50 year fixed-rate mortgage, without government backed securitization. Which other country in the world has fixed rate 30 year mortgages? The US is unique in that the mortgages are government-backed.

No one is willing to admit that this is socialism. And it's surprising that Reason - an explicitly libertarian magazine, dedicated to lower government involvement - would miss the opportunity to point this out.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

There are plenty of non agency 30 year fixed loan products. They are nothing new.

[Bhagwad]

Fair point. Non-agency loans are usually given to high-net worth and credit worthy individuals, so you're right that they exist. I should have been more precise.

Presumably however, the whole conversation around 50-year mortgages is in the context of low net worth individuals, without the greatest financial resources. So I very much doubt that non-agency loans would be an important factor in that regard.

[Chumby]

Have known individuals that will finance other individuals with mortgages.
Some financial institutions will also do this via a portfolio loan.

If this wasn’t a cosmopolitan magnet periodical, there could be a discussion on paying cash for the (rural) land then proceeding to a self-reliant existence without borrowing.

[Chumby]

Reason is libertarian?

[r]

Once upon a time.

Here, Reason ignores the whole Fannie/Freddie control of the mortgage market, but seems very content to paternalize borrowers and limit their choices because gov't knows what's best for them.

[JesseAz (RIP CK)]

The house is what backs the loan....

[Chumby]

Ideally. Not sure how often folks get underwater with them these days, but do recall the subprime/high risk times where folks got underwater at the same time the economy was doing poorly (where one household income might have ended or was reduced). Knew one such case where the borrower ended up six figures underwater using their remaining loan versus the current market value. Looked them up about a year ago and they are still in that house (and its value recovered to where it was when they overpaid originally).

[Neutral not Neutered]

Home renovation loans up to 120% of the value of the home...

[Chumby]

The banksters ensuring that at some are able to make an effort to keep up with the Joneses.

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

It's not surprising.

[psmoot]

I don't know it has to be a government backed insurance. Banks handled this for decades before Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac muscled in in the 80s and 90s.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

If you're serious about actually owning the house a conventional 15 year note making additional principle payments when possible makes the most sense. But most people move on in less than 10 years so the term doesn't really matter that much. I don't see a problem with a 50 year note but without significant appreciation or aggressive principle payments a lot of sellers will find themselves writing a check at the closing table. But as with all things individual responsibility is required.

[KeninTX]

A 50 Year Mortgage is very nearly an interest-only loan. As a practical matter no one will ever pay it off just making monthly payments, the likelihood of living at the same address for 50 years is very small.

It stretches the definition of the term 'home ownership' to its limits, in my opinion.

[Neutral not Neutered]

It becomes generational mortgages like seen in Japan.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

The FHFA chief reportedly showed up to the Oval Office with a poster comparing FDR's 30-year mortgage to a Trump 50-year mortgage, and Trump posted an image of the poster a few minutes later.

Just like in the days of yore, those who received the King's favor at court were handsomely rewarded.

[InsaneTrollLogic (smarter than The Average Dude)]

And just where were you during the Biden Administration?

[Bertram Guilfoyle]

those who received the King's favor at court were handsomely rewarded

Rewarded with home across from Walgreens?

[Idaho-Bob]

Walgreens/Safeway/Bass Pro Shop combo.

It's in the constitution!!!

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

Which one of those sell weed?

[Weigel's Cock Ring]

If a young individual or couple is buying a starter first home and anticipates selling and upgrading within a few years, it really doesn't make any meaningful difference whether that mortgage is 30 years, 40 years, or 50 years. In fact, depending on various factors such as the mortgage rate, current market conditions, and the current economic status of the buyer, it can actually make a lot of sense to go for the lowest monthly payment possible.

Also, newsflash: there is no law anywhere I'm aware of that says you're only allowed to the minimum monthly payment and not a penny more! The overwhelming majority of mortgages can be paid off early without penalty if the buyer wants to and is able to. Whether or not it even makes sense to do that, again, that depends on several different factors (some of which can change over time).

But some people are just afflicted with such a terminal case of Trump Derangement Syndrome they feel obligated to completely lose their minds over ever single thing he says, no matter how relatively benign.

[Longtobefree]

The difference is the total lack of equity in the first years.
You will never build equity in a 50 yr mortgage if you 'upgrade' every few years.
Even a 30 year mortgage makes no sense now that the fiction of taking a job and working it 30 years has gone.
The fastest way to lower house prices is to eliminate all non-conforming mortgages regardless of length. If people have to save up a 20% down payment the demand will drop like a rock.

[P. Henry]

Why does building equity matter? A house is a place to live, not an investment. And even if you look at it as an investment, it pays a “dividend” - you get a place to live. No one ever says you shouldn’t get a car loan because you don’t build equity. The loan is a way to finance an asset you couldn’t otherwise get.

[Neutral not Neutered]

It is all about risk for the lender.

Mortgages are easier to obtain than a car loan because the house will not depreciate like a car and the value will go up.

Interest rates are also lower for that reason. Along with reduced criteria to obtain credit for a house.

It is a far better interest rate on a mortgage with 20%+ equity, less risk for the lender, than if there was 5% or 10% equity in the home.

Not that that helped when Bush Jr with Karl Rove made the Chicken little, global economy is collapsing, cries and said, sometimes the free market has to go outside itself in order to save itself so here's billions of tax payers dollars for the investment houses to take.

[P. Henry]

Nothing you said relates to why a homeowner should care about a reduction in building equity.

[Zeb]

Lower payments means higher prices, which means payments are a wash (overall).

[Heraclitus]

in the 20th year you are still only paying a very small amount toward the principle and many times more toward interest. So you are basically building no equity and paying mostly interest. And you get the privilege of being responsible for the maintenance of the home.

[P. Henry]

I suppose you attribute zero value to being able to live there?

[Bruce D]

Being able to live there can be accomplished by paying rent. Having a 50 year mortgage is closer to paying rent, but not quite, since equity increases, but slowly.

[Jayburd]

They lost me at "purchasing mortgages". Is that really a function of government? The problem lies in the risk of fraud in these transactions ( and the fact that it doesn't really meet the Constitutional threshold of "general welfare of the people" or interstate commerce).
You want cheaper housing? Make more land available. And who is the biggest landowner in this country? I would love to see hundreds of old minivans with broken-out windows racing across the prairie to some land lottery. But unfortunately for some that deflates real-estate prices and equity.
De-commodify mortgages. You issue a mortgage, you hold the paper to term. And only the issuer can make home equity loans or do away with home equity loans altogether.

[Zeb]

Yes. But I think there's more to it than just supply and demand for land. Home prices are absurd at this point and it has been driven largely by government fuckery with the market. Stop making mortgages easier to get and less risky for banks. Stop holding interest rates at artificially low levels. Stop sending fucking checks out to people when we have insane levels of debt and too high inflation. And if you get harmed by lower home prices because you assumed that it was an investment that would always increase in value, fuck you too.
I try to be optimistic about Trump, but a lot of this stuff makes me want to agree with those calling him an economic retard. He seems to want to try to please everyone and that's not possible.

[Neutral not Neutered]

Government fuckery meaning building and energy codes forcing prices up by 40% in some cases, average around 30% in less than a decade alone.

Stop making mortgages easier? Do you want to make it more difficult for people to purchase homes?

The Carter/Clinton community revitalization Act forcing lenders to give out sub prime mortgages was a large part of the collapse under Bush Jr/Obama. This put more risk on the lenders, not less. Is this the government fuckery you speak of?

Freddie and Fannie, insuring the borrower to add guarantees for the lender to be paid helps the market and lower income home buyers. It is paid for by the borrower and as it is insurance you can bet it profits. The fraud and theft however inside is different.

Holding interest rates artificially low? Are you kidding? What about supply and demand? There's so much money sitting there waiting to be borrowed, interest rates should be lower. Do you want to collapse the economy with higher interest rates?

So you give the big fuck you to all the people who had their home equity stolen when the bubble popped and no one was held accountable? All those billions taken off the top of the residential property market across the US and you say the home owners get the big fuck you? they already did by Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers and the like. Add in Obama and Bush Jr to that list.

Thanks asshole. I lost 70K because of failed gov policies and shitty financial house hedge funds and you say to me fuck you?

Perhaps you need to rethink yourself before assuming Trump is an economic retard. Your complaints all appear to stem from shitty democrat policies.

[Zeb]

Sorry, that was perhaps a bit harsh. I should have said "too bad for you" not "fuck you".
But, yes, I do want to make it more difficult for people to purchase new homes if it's being made easier by means of government policies and that includes messing with the loan market.

[Rick James]

You want cheaper housing? Make more land available. And who is the biggest landowner in this country?

In a world where the country's flagship libertarian magazine harps non-stop about the benefits of taxing cars to reduce congestion, you start to realize just how steep the uphill battle is... we've already agreed to disagree on so much before this conversation, thus locking us in to more-density-less-cars-more-public-transit-because-something-something-climate-change.

So yeah, good luck with the 'make more land available' argument.

[rbike]

I'm making some deals with Musk for some prime real estate on the moon. I'm putting in options to buy. Lunar estates with a view of the earth. What could go wrong.

I should take some inspiration from " The Man Who Sold the Moon" by RHH.
A good short story. Musk could star in the movie.

[Chumby]

What a lunartic!

[imppress]

Most of the land the Gubmint owns is nowhere near job centers.
You can get very inexpensive housing that is also not near job centers, not just raw land.
Fed land near job centers is comparatively scarce, and probably being held for good reason.
What bothers me most is that a 50 year mortgage might well outlast the house. I've seen the quality of new construction.

[Bruce D]

You can get very inexpensive housing that is also not near job centers, not just raw land.

Good point. But people don't want to have to drive more than an hour each way to and from work. Some form or amount of up-zoning will be necessary to make land available to meet housing demand within a reasonable distance from people's work.

[Neutral not Neutered]

Understand the lender is whom the government is backing by insuring you will not default on the mortgage because they will pay if you do.

This keeps interest rates lower and the borrower pays the fees for the insurance...

[Eeyore]

I think if I can get a 1000 year mortgage - I might be able to afford my dream home.

I will be needing financial assistance to cover the insurance and property taxes.

[mad.casual]

Oh, yeah?! Well I can afford to pay twice the price for the same dream home with just a 120 yr. mortgage!

[Eeyore]

Maybe just issue every baby born a lifetime mortgage at the same time as they are issued a SSN? They should start thinking about working full time when they turn 12, given that they have already accrued 12 years of interest.

[psmoot]

So, I did the math. If I borrow $100k at 6% (the numbers don't actually matter), my monthly payment for a 30 year mortgage is about $5,100. For a 50 year mortgage, it's $5,025, a $75/month difference, or a 1.5% change.

That's going to have a trivial effect on home purchase decisions. Game changer, my a$$.

[P. Henry]

You need to fix your calculator. And do sanity checks. A $5,100 per month payment would be $61.2k per year. That’s awfully steep on a $100,000 mortgage!

The monthly payment on 30 years is $600. On 50 years it’s $526. A 12% difference.

[The Angry Hippopotamus]

and that's assuming you can get the same 6% rate for a 30-year mortgage as a 50-year mortgage. Usually the longer the term the higher the interest rate. At a rate of 7% for the 50-year term, the payment is $602 (rounded up), so even higher, although rather negligible at $2 higher than the payment on the 30-year term

[Minadin]

Not a fan of the 50-year mortgage idea.

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

Then don’t get one.

[Zeb]

Trump boasting about a favorable comparison to FDR is a big strike against him.
This shit is idiotic. 50 year mortgage will just make real estate more expensive. As will continuing to insist on artificially low interest rates. Fuck that. I continue to believe that Trump was the better available option, but he's really losing me on a lot of economic stuff. I think we're in for more inflation and more bubbles. How about we stop doing things that punish people for being responsible and saving and avoiding large amounts of debt?

[Homer Thompson]

couldn't agree more

[psmoot]

The monthly payment difference between a 30 and 50 year mortgage is trivial. You won't even be able to measure the difference on home ownership.

What it will do is slow down how fast you pay down the principle. But depending on where you live, the big win to owning a house is appreciation, not paying off principle, certainly at the start. Changing from 30 to 50 won't affect that in any way either.

This is all a big nothing burger.

[Zeb]

It may be small, but it still will only serve to make homes even more overpriced.

[But SkyNet is a Private Company]

As a self employed person whose income varies from month to month, I’d love one.
The key is to pay additional principal in good months, while enjoying the lower payment pbligation in bad months

[Zeb]

I think 30 year does you just fine as far as that goes. Payments won't be all that much lower on a 50 year, and you will pay hugely more interest. And prices are likely to rise in proportion to the lower payment anyway, in a tight market.

[But SkyNet is a Private Company]

What you think is irrelevant

[Zeb]

Whether or not I think it may be irrelevant. But it might also be true.

[Bruce D]

No, it's not. He made a good point - there's not much difference in mortgage payment between the two.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

This is the way. Look at the scheduled payment as the minimum and pay down the principle when you're flush. I paid off a 15 year note in 12 years but I could do the same with a 30 or even 50 year note.

[Zeb]

I paid off my 30 year in 13 years. Worked great for me. The problem is too many people think about things in terms of what monthly payments they can afford. I fear that's most of the market and people won't be looking primarily for the lowest payment possible, but at how much they can get for the payment they can afford. Policies need to incentivize responsibility and paying off debt faster. I don't think this does either of those things.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Many years ago I looked at selling cars for a living (yeah I was that desperate). Part of the training involved customers who were underwater on their trade ins. The guy explained that the only thing people care about is their monthly payment so we could just roll everything into a brand new 6 or 7 or 8 year note. Match the payment to the note and put these poor bastards in a brand new car! A car is obviously a depreciating asset and in all likelihood these idiots would either default or drown. I decided that I could not in good conscience participate and found different work.

[Zeb]

I'm really glad I had the parents I did who encouraged financial responsibility. Hopefully we can avoid really catastrophic inflation so that won't just make me a sucker.

[Spiritus Mundi]

The average person keeps their mortgage for less than 10 years. This is can be attributed to people moving every several years, or refinancing. Changing the loan terms will probably not effect much. Banks will get a little more intrest and borrows will accrue a little less equity, but overall the only thing that will change noticeably will be the monthly payment. Nobody is going to keep a mortgage for 50 years. Besides, after 30 years, inflation will make the remaining 20 years of principle negligable.

[Zeb]

Still going to drive prices up even more, at least in competitive markets. If people can have lower payments, they will bid more for a house.

[Bruce D]

^^This.

[Longtobefree]

A fifty year mortgage is like a state lottery; both are a tax on people who are bad at math.

[Eeyore]

I was going to say the same thing about college education.

[MollyGodiva]

50 year mortgages are an idea only a moron like Trump could like. All the headaches of owning a home but you don't build equity. I do think it will be funny when MAGAs take out 50 year mortgages and suffer.

[Malvolio]

A 50-year mortgage does not cause borrowers to pay more interest over the life of the mortgage. It does not cause borrowers build equity more slowly.

A 50-year mortgage allows borrowers to pay more interest over the life of the mortgage. It allows borrowers build equity more slowly.

If you have a 50-year mortgage and you want to pay it off in 30 years, with all the benefits and costs of doing so, go right ahead. Nobody is stopping you. The terms of the mortgage specify the minimum monthly payment and the maximum term length, that’s all.

[Longtobefree]

https://babylonbee.com/news/banks-now-requiring-your-grandkids-to-co-sign-your-50-year-mortgage

[Eeyore]

Just need the government to enact a filial liability law that covers all 50+ year mortgages. Could make future generations liable in perpetuity.

[Eeyore]

Tell that to all the kids that ate the marshmallow.

[Weigel's Cock Ring]

Thank you for this bit of sanity and rationality. A longer term loan really does the borrower MORE flexibility and control over how he's going to repay it, not less!

[But SkyNet is a Private Company]

How libertarian of you. All these busybodies deciding for everyone else

[AT]

Instead of a 50yr mortgage, can I please have 50 million deportations instead?

[Zeb]

Does it apply to Massholes?

[AT]

Sure, why not. They don't really count as Americans anymore.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

The residential real estate market is completely distorted by government policy going back at least to LBJ. Nobody knows what an arms length purchase actually looks like in the current market. Are prices too high? Are prices too low? No one can really say because the invisible hand has hit a brick wall. The averages are highly affected by the hot markets but there are lots of very nice homes elsewhere that are pretty damn cheap. A house may or may not be a good investment but it's actually just a place to live. Own one if you can and forget about the background noise.

[creech]

Let me tell you younger folks that having no mortgage payments when you retire is a big factor in the level of lifestyle you will enjoy.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

The only reason I am surviving retirement is that I got myself out of debt before I got here. I own everything I have.

[Gregdn]

On the plus side, mortgage holders would die before they finding out that they'd never own their home...

[AVL_Ivan]

I’m for letting the market dictate the terms as long as there’s not the moral hazard of a bailout and/or mortgage interest deduction.

That said, potential mortgagees ought to look at how much additional interest they’d pay with a 50 year amortization schedule. That schedule would also show how long it would take before they’d ever have meaningful ownership.

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

Ooooh! It’s something different than the way we did it before! That can’t be good!

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

Is this anything like 7 minute abs?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y5K3KsuQ_M

[Ratwrangler]

The best way to help more Americans afford homes would be a twofold plan. One, make more small and inexpensive homes, even if you have to change zoning to make it work. Two, convince people that they don't need 2.400 square foot "starter homes". My parents raised four children in a 1,200 square foot home. My wife and I raised two children in 1,000 square feet, but they don't seem to build homes that small any longer.

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

…but they don't seem to build homes that small any longer.

Because there is no demand.

[Weigel's Cock Ring]

This absolutely used to be true, especially for my generation (Gen X), but the demand for much smaller starter homes is making a big comeback now for a bunch of reasons (affordability is a big one for young adults now, plus people are marrying and having children much later) and suppliers are beginning to meet that demand in many areas.

[KeninTX]

Too bad all the cheap land any where you might want to live is full of bigger homes.

[rbike]

I am working on that lunar deal. I can get you in on a lot of prime real estate with a great view for just a small investment.

[Fred12345]

Is this a libertarian magazine or a place where writers go to whine? Who cares if they offer 50 year mortgages? People are not forced to use them.

[KeninTX]

It would be nice if the gov't required first-time home buyers to take a class on the concept of "compound interest" so they could understand the ramifications of a 50 year mortgage.

Personally, I would never get an adjustable rate mortgage - but then the last time I needed a mortgage the rates were very low compared to today, and housing prices weren't insane...

[KeninTX]

Please, for Pete's sake, don't offer an adjustable rate 50 year mortgage... And no liars/NINJA loans!

[jabbermule]

Good grief, there are a lot of commenters here who have clearly never bought a house by taking out a mortgage. Quite a bit of ignorance on how this stuff actually works, or maybe a bunch of wealthy trust fund babies who paid cash for their first home?

As for the 50-year loan I wouldn't do it myself, but it would offer a smaller monthly payment to first-time buyers who wouldn't qualify otherwise. That's about it - the down payment will still be the same, so they would need to exercise a lot of discipline saving their money or get help from the in-laws, just like with a 30-year loan.

[See Double You]

Get the federal government out of the fucking mortgage business, or anything dealing with housing or real estate (other than its own properties).

[Kungpowderfinger]

WTF, 50 year mortgages were around when I bought my first house more than 20 years ago, and I was in my late thirties. Probably not a lot of Reason writers who own homes.

The bank tried pulling that shit plus a secondary interest only ARM “to avoid paying PMI”. We of course told them to get fucked, exact words.

It’s almost as if the cocksuckers new they were going to get bailed out.

[JFree]

You will own nothing and be happy!

[JohnZ]

The nation is now in a mild recession which will soon become a major version. Possibly into a depression or even worse total economic collapse.
The problem is that most people are not prepared.
People can deny it all they want but it's coming. No nation can withstand the amount of debt this nation has accrued and survive. This American empire is coming to an end as all empires eventually do, they become mere shadows of their former selves.
The debt to GDP ratio is now over 135%. How much more will it take before this charade will collapse?
Congress continues to make the same mistake, year after year as Einstein
once said" Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."
Somebody needs to put a straight jacket around congress and lock them in a padded cell.

[Heraclitus]

"Murdering puppies: completely fine or a total flop". What kind of angle is this Reason?

[BioBehavioral_View]

Divisiveness; Debt; Defeats; and Self-degradation

These United States have become a nation afflicted by crippling political divisiveness; deepening economic debt; serial military defeats; and abominable, depraved self-degradation — all of which seem destined to end in desperate despair.

Excerpt from the novel, Retribution Fever:
As one survivor of the plague attracted by the allure of alliteration, an allure once prized in Old English, commented, “We allowed our immediate predecessors to drive us into a decline described by debt, decay, defeat, degradation, deprivation, desperation, and ultimately despair. They possessed a peculiar proclivity to place opinion before fact, ideology before knowledge, emotion before reason, and politics before Science.”

The annual deficits for the government were offset by increasing debt frequently “off-budget”; a gambit that, in the private sector, would land the perpetrator in prison. Some experts estimated the total debt as the unimaginable amount of four-hundred trillion — trillion! — dollars; minimally, one-hundred trillion.

American currency had come to represent nothing more than a promise on a promise — a promise to confer value by promising to tax the creative and productive for the benefit of the destructive and unproductive re-labelled “the vulnerable” — “the vulnerable” who, with their “humanitarian” sympathizers, voted themselves the fruits of other people’s labors. “Entitlements” involuntarily extorted by government were to replace charity voluntarily donated by individuals. Big Government, thereby, freed itself to print as much paper-based currency as politicians demanded to support chronic, deficit-ridden spending financed by chronic, unlimited expansion of debt.

Under the new President, military services starved while “human services” gorged. The feasting came courtesy of money borrowed from abroad. The light of true prosperity fueled by the inherited wealth of the dearly departed — wealth squandered by The Left — had burnt brightly, flickered, then died. Facing economic gloom, the politicians lit another lamp the lamp of phony prosperity fueled by debt. Meanwhile, the darkness of doom waited its turn silently in a future not far away.

One consequence of the aforementioned migration had been an increasing tyranny by warring groups of minorities who had lit the nation on fire. Each wanted more for itself at the expense of others — more of the decreasing growth in American wealth, especially among the declining middle-class. The politicians and bureaucrats fostered this avarice via promoting dependence upon government, funding redistribution of wealth through debt and taxes including the hidden tax of inflation that amounts to legalized theft.

They had issued increasing amounts of fiat currency, so that the government could buy its own debt — the financial equivalent of sending love-letters to oneself. In doing so, the wicked sacrificed the virtuous. In gaining and maintaining power, politicians and bureaucrats wreaked economic ruin while robbing the prudent among the middle-class of its wealth — citizens who saved not spent; citizens who were creditors not debtors; citizens who were makers not takers. With the proceeds, these vile vermin bought the votes of the greedy, the irresponsible, and the crooked — all of whom claimed to be innocent, vulnerable victims while waving the banner of “humanitarianism and social justice”.