President Trump recently floated an idea to solve the housing affordability crisis: create a 50-year mortgage. Stretch the loan, lower the monthly payment, and help more people qualify to buy a home.
At first glance, it sounds bold. But the more you look at the numbers, the clearer it becomes that the idea does not solve the core problem. It simply stretches the same overpriced home over a longer timeline, leaving buyers paying far more interest and gaining equity far more slowly.
CBS News ran the math on a typical $360,000 loan. A 50-year mortgage could drop the monthly payment by a couple of hundred dollars, but the total interest paid over the life of the loan jumps from roughly $438,000 on a 30-year loan to around $816,000 on a 50-year loan. In other words, the buyer pays nearly double the interest just to get a lower monthly payment.
Even Trump’s allies are warning that this is the wrong approach.
Fox Business host Charles Payne said the plan might temporarily make payments look smaller, but the actual cost balloons. His reaction was simple: “You save a few hundred dollars a month, but by the time you finish paying it off, you have paid almost seven hundred thousand dollars. That is not the way to do this.”
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said the idea traps people in lifetime debt. Her reaction was blunt: “You are in debt forever, in debt for life.” She warned that the real winners would be banks and mortgage lenders, not families.
Representative Thomas Massie added that if someone needs a 50-year mortgage, the problem is not the length of the loan. The problem is the price of the house. In his view, long-term mortgages are a “recipe for default and no ability to move for better jobs or schools.”
These are not liberal attacks. These are right-leaning voices raising practical concerns.
The Real Driver: Supply and Demand
The United States does not have enough housing. Prices rise when demand surges and supply does not.
There are two major pressure points making this worse:
- Restrictions on building
Local permitting delays, zoning rules, limits on multi-unit housing, and slow approval processes choke off supply - Massive population inflows, driven by both legal and illegal immigration
When millions of new residents enter the country, they need places to live. Many move to already tight markets where vacancy rates are near zero. Even if they are not buying homes, they increase demand for rentals, which pushes rents higher. Higher rent makes it harder for families to save for a down payment. Increased competition for scarce housing drives purchase prices up as well.
This is not even a cultural argument, it’s basic economics. More people competing for the same number of available homes raises the price.
Economists have noted that markets with the largest recent immigration inflows, especially in border states and major metro areas, are also seeing the fastest rent and home price growth. When supply does not increase along with population growth, the market tightens. Inventory falls. Bidding wars become the norm. Everyone pays more.
A 50-year mortgage does not change any of this. It does not build a single new house. It does not free up land for development. It does not remove zoning barriers. It does not address the demand pressure that comes from rapid population growth.
It simply allows people to finance today’s inflated prices over a longer period of time. In essence, the problem gets worse, not better.
Trump Should Push for Ownership, Not Permanent Debt
Homeownership is supposed to be a path to wealth. A longer mortgage delays equity. It keeps families in debt and gives the bank control of the property for most of a person’s working life.
The principled answer is simple:
- Encourage lower rates and shorter terms, driving down prices
- Increase housing supply by cutting zoning restrictions and speeding up permitting
- Decrease immigration flows on all fronts
If you want home prices to fall, there must be more homes than buyers. That is how markets work. That is how ownership becomes affordable.
Trump is right that housing affordability is a crisis. People need help. But a 50-year mortgage is not the solution. It spreads the pain across more years and ignores the structural forces pushing prices higher: not enough housing and too many buyers competing for too few units.
America needs more homes, not more years of debt.