Evaluating the 50-Year Mortgage: A New Option?
In November 2025, President Trump posted on social media about a 50-year mortgage to propose an idea to make home ownership more affordable. As expected, media outlets blew up right afterwards. Some posts were positive, but most of the ones that I saw were negative. In this post, I am going to talk through some of the important things to know related to this post and the idea of a 50-year mortgage.
First, I don’t think this product will actually happen. President Trump likes to use social media to pitch ideas and solicit feedback. In this case, I think it was nothing more than testing the waters. I don’t have the actual numbers to back up my belief, but I think a large percentage of the ideas he floats on social media don’t ever happen—he’s just getting a pulse for the idea. I believe the 50-year mortgage fits into this category.
Second, I ran some numbers comparing a 30-year to a 50-year mortgage, and the results were extremely surprising to me. I’ll share some details in a moment.
Lastly, even if a 50-year mortgage became a thing, I hear from realtors and mortgage loan officers who tell me the average length of staying in a home today is 5-7 years. So, even the 30-year mortgage reaching maturity is a current fantasy, much less adding 20 years to it. If you want to build any equity in your home in less than 7 years, you’ll need a 15-year mortgage or shorter in most cases. The big exception would be in an environment like the one we’ve experienced in the last 3 years where home values skyrocket. You still wouldn’t get as much equity as you could, but it’s better than nothing.
Now, let’s look at some numbers.
Let’s purchase a $400,000 home and put a down payment of $80,000 and finance the rest. (If these numbers seem inflated, that’s because they are. This is what has happened to home ownership in 2025.) You probably assume, like I did, that the monthly payment would drop considerably on a 50-year term vs a 30-year term. Let’s take a look:
30-year mortgage at 5.98% rate: $2,289.45/mo payment; total interest at maturity would be $369,201.62; after 10 years, the remaining balance would be $259,253.34
50-year mortgage at 6.25% rate(because longer terms are always higher rates): $2,118.91/mo payment; total interest at maturity is $726,347.66(!); after 10 years, the remaining balance would be $305,080.87
What stands out? The first thing I notice is that the monthly payment only drops by $170.54! I figured it would be closer to $400, but it’s nowhere close. The second thing I notice is the total interest at maturity. You would pay $357,146.04 MORE in interest with the 50-year mortgage. That’s another house entirely! The last thing is your available equity after 10 years reduces by about $50,000 with the 50-year product. So, that $170 you are saving on the monthly payment? That amounts to a total savings of $20,400 after 10 years compared to the $50,000 in lost equity if you simply paid the 30-year rate. That’s not a good return on your investment. This math assumes the value of your house doesn’t change in 10 years.
What if you followed today’s trend and stayed in your home for 5-7 years before you moved out? With the 30-year mortgage, you’d have very little equity. With the 50-year, you’d basically have zero. There would be no equity to use as down payment assistance on your next purchase. You would literally be better off renting for the same price and not going through the purchase process.
Bottom line? Even if a 50-year mortgage did become a reality, it would do nothing to help you. You would end up with a payment that is nearly the same, but the interest cost would easily overtake any benefit you received on the payment. I would never recommend it based on what I know today.