With housing affordability top of mind for many Americans, the Trump administration has floated a “game-changer” solution to the lack of access that has a few experts scratching their heads: A 50-year mortgage.
“Thanks to President Trump, we are indeed working on The 50 year Mortgage — a complete game changer,” Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte said in an initial statement on X announcing the proposal. Later, he added: “We are laser focused on ensuring the American Dream for YOUNG PEOPLE, and that can only happen on the economic level of home-buying. A 50 Year Mortgage is simply a potential weapon in a WIDE arsenal of solutions that we are developing right now. STAY TUNED!”
The announcement drew criticism from both sides of the aisle pretty quickly. The idea was floated to President Donald Trump without some of the additional vetting his team would’ve preferred before an official announcement, according to Politico. The president went ahead and posted a graphic of himself next to former President Franklin D. Roosevelt, comparing 50-year mortgages with the Roosevelt administration’s 30-year mortgages.
Frazao Studio Latino via Getty Images
Trump said he considered these mortgages to be “not even a big deal,” while on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle,” which aired on Monday.
“I mean, you go from 40 to 50 years, and what it means is you pay something less. From 30, some people had a 40, and now they have a 50,” Trump said. “All it means is you pay less per month. You pay it over a longer period of time. It’s not like a big factor. It might help a little bit.”
To understand how much these proposed mortgages might help or hurt potential homebuyers, HuffPost spoke with experts in housing and real estate to gain a deeper understanding of what borrowers might be signing up for.
Spoiler alert: It might not be pretty.
Experts say a 50-year mortgage just kicks the affordability crisis down the road.
“The appeal of the 50-year mortgage is to offer lower monthly payments to homebuyers and break up the log jam of the current housing market, which has struggled in terms of sales pace all year,” Joel Berner, a senior economist at Realtor.com, told HuffPost.
“The drawbacks are that a 50-year mortgage results in almost double the interest payments of a 30-year mortgage and a longer path to meaningful home equity, and that the result of subsidizing home demand without increasing home supply could be an increase to home prices that negates the potential savings,” Berner continued.
While there are certainly arguments for increasing the number of homebuyers in the market, it’s the hollowing out of home equity value that gives experts pause. “It is not a solution. What that would actually do is kick the affordability crisis down the road,” Salim Chraibi, CEO of Bluenest Development, said.
“You’re already paying roughly double the home’s price with a 30-year mortgage once all the interest is accounted for. With a 50-year loan, you could end up paying close to triple. Instead of building wealth, homeowners would stay in debt for the majority of their life,” Chraibi said. “Yes, it would make monthly payments lower and get more people in the door. But at what cost? We’d be asking people to work into their 80s and 90s just to pay off a home. That’s madness.”
The very long-term debt becomes more of a concern when considering that the median first-time home buyer has aged significantly, with a study from the National Association of Realtors finding that the median age has risen from 35 years old to 38 years old as of 2024.
“For older first-time buyers, they likely had to save for longer periods of time, amid a higher-inflation economy, while paying down other debt such as student loans, car payments and credit card debt,” NAR Deputy Chief Economist Jessica Lautz told FOX Business. “They may have even been actively looking for a property to purchase but had many offers fall through because all-cash buyers won housing bids.”
While Berner notes that the proposal is designed “to boost homebuyer demand, which has been subdued for the last several years as mortgage rates have been stuck in the 6+% range,” he cautioned against addressing only the demand part of the equation without making moves to address supply.
“More flexible financing is essentially a subsidy for housing demand, which will add to the pool and buying power of homebuyers without increasing the supply of homes, which will drive home prices up,” Berner said. “The ‘savings’ from 50-year mortgages may be totally negated by rising home prices.”
What a 50-year mortgage could look like, by the numbers.
“A 50-year mortgage stretches the loan out so that the monthly payment seems less painful ― but the reality is a painful punch through interest over time,” said Charles Urquhart, founder of Fixed Income Resources and an adjunct professor of finance at Loyola University Maryland.
“When projected, today’s mortgage rates suggest that a $400,000 loan on a 30-year mortgage equals about $560,000 [after] interest. On a 50-year mortgage, it’s closer to $980,000,” Urquhart continued. “Not equity; a hemorrhage.”
Additionally, concerns arise that the larger goals of owning a home are undermined by the shifting goalposts — it makes the bank a very long-term landlord.
“It transforms the idea of ownership. For the first 20 years of a 50-year mortgage, almost nothing goes to principal. One is renting their mortgage from their lender,” Urquhart added. “With no equity, less of a market to refinance, it’s a slow approach to wealth generation, especially for first-time homebuyers who already are older by the time they get into the homes.”
The older ages across the board can also increase the odds that families will run into the issue of having to navigate the estate of a loved one with an active mortgage — often leaving these surviving family members to take on debt, sell or face foreclosure. (Notably, this is already happening given the high age of first-time and repeat buyers.)
Are there any better solutions?
All the experts who spoke with HuffPost said this proposal falls short of what they believe will actually address the crisis of homeownership and affordability.
“This is not the best way to solve housing affordability,” Berner said. “The administration would do better to reverse tariff-induced inflation, which is keeping the rates on existing mortgages high and to encourage the expansion of housing supply by promoting homebuilding.”
Chraibi also had reservations about this route and suggested there were more efficient avenues for working families: “The most promising solution lies in lowering the barriers to homeownership. Down payment assistance programs, workforce housing initiatives, and attainable new construction can actually give working families a path to homeownership without trapping them in lifelong loans.”
Berner added that this isn’t the pure boon for buyers that some of the current framing makes it out to be: “Buyers do benefit from spreading out the high cost of a home purchase over a longer period, but lenders certainly benefit too by having a longer period to charge higher interest rates.”
