The FHA head said the proposal is a “complete game changer.” Yeah right.
Complete Game Changer – Not
- 50-Year mortgages won’t help with the down payment. For many, that is a huge obstacle.
- Home prices are starting to decline. Anyone who needs to sell their home within a few years would be upside down. We don’t nee more people trapped in their homes.
- Prices need to fall and fall dramatically. To the extent the product would create demand, it would help keep prices higher.
- The average age of the first-time home buyer is over 30. Congrats. They would own their home at age 80+, assuming they were still alive. If not, heirs would own the mortgage.
- 30-year mortgage rate are higher than 15-year rates. 50-year rates would be higher still. The higher rate would eat up some of the alleged “savings”.
- People are already in trouble because they do not understand property taxes or maintenance.
Bill Pulte fired ethics workers who were looking into his ally
The Washington Post reports Housing official Bill Pulte fired ethics workers who were looking into his ally
President Donald Trump’s firebrand housing finance director, Bill Pulte, fired internal watchdogs at the Federal National Mortgage Association who were looking into multiple complaints against a high-ranking company officer close to him, according to people familiar with the matter.
Pulte said last month he had fired dozens of Fannie Mae employees in what he said included a bid to end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at the mortgage giant. Yet six people familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution, said those firings effectively cleared out the company’s internal watchdogs, charged with ensuring Fannie and its officials follow the law. The ethics team — including its chief, Suzanne Libby — was fired shortly after Fannie management directed investigators to cease looking into the Pulte ally, said a couple of the people familiar with the situation.
Pulte’s roles are wide-ranging: He runs the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees the U.S. mortgage market and controls Fannie and its peer, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., or Freddie Mac. Pulte has overhauled the company boards and made himself chairman of both firms.
On Monday morning, at least 200 additional Fannie employees were fired, according to two sources familiar with the terminations, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the move publicly. It was not immediately clear which staffers were fired or how they were selected.
Earlier this month, Reuters also reported that the internal FHFA watchdog was being removed.
Mish Proposal
The first thing I would do is fire Pulte. More importantly, I would end the the FHA, HUD, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.
Every one of those agencies increased demand for houses and thus prices.
Government has no business in the home ownership business.
Small Government?
Once again Trump campaigned on a pledge of small government. And once again the cult looks away as Trump’s meddling increases everywhere you look.
In case you missed it, please consider TDS and TWS: Will You Admit This Is Also Deranged?
Addendum
After 12 years of payments on a 50-year mortgage very little principle will have been paid back.
Here’s the exact comparison for a $400,000 loan at 6% fixed rate after exactly 12 years (144 monthly payments) on 15-year, 30-year, and 50-year mortgages.
| Term | Monthly P&I Payment | Total Paid After 12 Years | Principal Paid After 12 Years | % of Original Principal Paid | Remaining Balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15-year | $3,375.74 | $486,106 | $305,364 | 76.34% | $94,636 |
| 30-year | $2,398.20 | $345,341 | $134,978 | 33.74% | $265,022 |
| 50-year | $2,063.74 | $297,178 | $66,251 | 16.56% | $333,749 |
I took the longest amortization and lowest payment I could get for my mortgage and then every year I increase the payment by 20% (the maximum allowable). My payment is now almost twice the original amount so I’m paying it off faster. If I run into a financial problem, I can simply revert the payment to the original amount. A 50 year mortgage would make this even more viable.
A key factor is the length of ownership of the home.
“… The average length of U.S. home ownership in 2024 is 11.9 years. While this number is nearly double the length of homeownership recorded in 2006 (6.5 years), homeownership has actually been on the decline since 2020.” Consumer Affairs.
Homeownership also varies regionally. LA is 18.7 years, Kentucky is 7 years. Knowing that, what gives YOU the best deal regarding mortgage term? (On an after-tax basis, of course)
Agreed. The only thing that then matters is what you think the home price will be when you eventually do move. The coin-flip is whether it will continue to rise or will you be lucky enough to be selling right when the market dumps? The other issue is the 6% you give away to a realtor to post your home online. If you pay no principle and see no rise in asset value, then that 6% will put you in a hole.
Lots to think about. Unfortunately, most people are too simple-minded to do this analysis and so will just crow at the headline.
Fifty-year mortgages, why not 100-year? LMAO.
When I needed to borrow to buy a house, I always took the 15-year term. No matter whether rates were high, or low, because back then rates were never below 7-8%. We went without/ minimized dining out, vacations etc. until we had funds to spare. Never paid points. Always paid more than the required monthly payment. Always paid a minimum of 20% down. Rehabbed each house for more (sweat) equity.
Most times, I negotiated a lower interest rate that the bank offered. Every time, I refused to pay their property tax crap. With a big enough bank balance, the bank didn’t care.
I propose 50 year mortgages but only for new Homes. It increase the supply side, and also create employment.
With Trump talking massive increases in the size of government and government spending, are Massie et al going to shoot down the shutdown deal?
When the time frames are that long, it just sounds like leasing.
This would put different risks and potential strains on finances of originators and guarantors (I’m thinking government, for the latter). It is a different expectation that a buy would or could maintain a mortgage for the full term.
As usual, ad hoc, not thought through, not well-modeled, just cheap tricks and trinkets dreamed up and tossed to the crowd (if actually implemented, often not) willy-nilly. I think the main aim is to produce short-term distraction.
“First time buyers” and “starter home” implies one is not going to buy and stay in the same house forever. That they are going to leverage up their first home into a larger home.
If I am not mistaken, they have (or had, at the peak of their 1990 housing bubble) 100 year mortgages in Japan.
I think Thailand or Vietnam have 99 year contracts for foreign buyers. You get the dwelling for 99 years after which it reverts back to the government. You can sell it at anytime though.
I recall being told of leases like that available in Mexico.
I’d argue that insurance cost are also forgotten by a majority of buyers … … … if they thought about them nobody would buy in areas prone to hurricanes or wild fires.
If one took out one of these loans would make themselves a debt slave for the majority of their lives. Just think about how much one would be paying for the entirety of this loan’s life.
But if you have a prepayment option, or a refinance possibility, there would be, well, other options, right? But at least a person could get into a starter.
Basically you get a rent controlled home for life. But now you have to pay for the upkeep, HOAs, and insurance. All the things that a landlord would take care of.
Lifetime debt for all the children… a nation of slaves! Praise be to the emperor!
They can work it off doing indentured servitude for the clients in Epstein clubs.
30-year mortgage for a van down by the river.
Buy a boat. More fun and see the world
The republican party trys to sell the “small “ government argument as being less expensive tax wise. In reality they just dont want someone (ie government) keepng them in check
Re: “Every one of those agencies increased demand for houses and thus prices.”
Only price increases generated by demand, irrespective of changes in supply, provide evidence of monetary inflation. There must be an increase in aggregate monetary purchasing power, AD, which can come about only as a consequence of an increase in the volume and/or transactions’ velocity of money.
The volume of domestic money flows must expand sufficiently to push prices up, irrespective of the volume of financial transactions consummated, the exchange value of the U.S. dollar (“reflected in FX indices and currency pairs”), and the flow of goods and services into the market economy.
Banks create the money for home loans out of thin air. That’s where the money comes from and why prices just keep escalating.
Longer auto loans resulted in greater default rates. Would 50 year home loans not have the same result?
… which would end up being another profit stream for the banks
So, more public bailouts if the banks suffered a reversal on it in the next several decades?
State capitalism wasn’t on the ballot, but here we have it, with cronyism (surprise, surpise!) to boot. Also today, ZeroHedge reports on the Trump admin’s plans to provide “hundreds of billions of dollars in financing aid, including loan guarantees for [nuclear reactor] projects that struggle to get bank loans.”
Not to worry, the losses will be made up from all the dodgy debtors the Trump admin says were “de-banked,” now swimming in loans the banks are arm-twisted to make.
These are, I suppose, hawkers of various dangerous and speculative products, now being foisted on the banking system as well.
My understanding is the constitution permits the federal government to be in the mail delivery business and nothing else, not mortgages, not retirement (SS), not education. One common thread among all those businesses, they are all troubled.
You might have to go back more than 200 years and start undoing infrastructure: up through canals, railroads, and so on. Plus court decisions going back at least to John Marshall. I don’t think this SCOTUS, despite its gimlet-eyed glances at precedent, is on the same planet as that interpretation.
people already effectively have 50 year notes when they keep on refinancing or buying homes with notes in middle age. who cares. i’m a libertarian. buy for cash like i do, or take out 100 year notes. freedom is the answer. what’s the question. of course i agree we should get government out of housing industry. but it is a pipe dream.
“The first thing I would do is fire Pulte. More importantly, I would end the the FHA, HUD, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.”
Why was the FNMA created in the first place? The answer is the Great Depression. It was a key FDR decision to build suburbia and create the 10s of millions of jobs over decades. And it was a spectacular success. The building of suburbia not only created jobs building housing, but created the needs for new roads, autos, electrical and water infrastructure, and the appliance industry.
FDR and the FNMA built modern America. And importantly, it did it in a way that was on the surface pro-capitalist. Millions of developers, contractors, construction workers, and factory workers thought they were making it on their own, not realizing it was all a lunatic, leftist government program in the background.
Though I do agree, it is no longer needed. The private sector has the capability to do the job on its own now. Private MBS lead the housing boom in the early 2000s, Fannie Mae was privatized at the time. We all know how that ended.
The rise of the GSEs, as predicted, was the result of the DIDMCA of March 31st 1980. It turned the thrifts into banks.
When you realize that a 25 year old buyer will only be age 75 before loan is finally paid 0ff? Possible Ad To promote? “Home Freedom after only paying —1/2 a Century— to the Man”
The first thing we do is, let’s kill all the bankers.
Trump Administration has proven might makes right and little else matters, so let’s do this today
important article. https://asiatimes.com/2025/11/de-dollarization-tipping-point-as-multipolar-finance-takes-hold/
most people do not buy a house and live in it until they die. They move about every 7 years. This could get people into home ownership. Besides that, they could make extra principal payments, they could refi when rates drop.
After 7 years on a 50-year plan equity paid is close to zero.
It’s idiocy
I guess I am the exception. I have been in my house almost half a century. The biggest disincentives to moving are state and Federal capital gains taxes. Thanks to California’s 1978 Proposition 13, my property taxes are very low.
This is Trump’s Plan B to address the nation’s debt 🙂
If Trump wants to propose something really populist, why not offer interest free mortgages? You would borrow normally from a bank, but the government would cover the interest, with the cost of that interest being funded by extra taxes on large real estate owners, real estate funds, reits and similar deed holders i.e. let the Blackstones & Blacksrocks of the world fund America’s home ownership.
Since the bank does not lend its own money, but instructs the Fed to create it out of thin air, it has no business collecting interest on it. The Fed might just create the money and give it to the home buyer. But that cannot be allowed, because doing it for the 99% would be socialistic and UBI and shite, unlike doing it for the 1%, the purest capitalism.
It does exist in France for low income buyers.
A move to benefit bankers. Banker need more than other people, because they are greedy overpaid bankers.
One ghoulish banker downvoted you
Ask Chrome^5: is 50Y mortgage a stupid idea: yes. It’s stupid. Ask AI in 2030: it’s a good idea: inflation will keep the real value of the house at about the same level, but the cost of 50y mortgage and the monthly payments, in nominal terms, will deflate in an asymptote chart hugging the zero line.
Chrome^5: ChatGPT, Grok, Chrome, Meta… are all the same. There isn’t much difference between them. They can read 100/200 articles faster than we can do, but they can’t think.
Variable rate mortgages for everyone will stop people from holding onto a house simply because they have a low, locked-in fixed rate.
Then remove all the tax benefits of owning a house and prices will plummet, thus removing the need for 50 year loans.
Trump is talking about 50Y gov bond. TNX = 4%. 30Y = 5%. 50Y = 6%. The dividend and the value of the 50Y bond will deflate, in real terms, in asymptotic way.
https://media.babylonbee.com/articles/6912276fa5e2b6912276fa5e2c.jpg
How could Trump not see that his “50 Year Mortgage” would be mocked? He is getting senile. He’s not yet shaking hands with people who aren’t there, but he’s losing his edge.
Biden, Trump, Kamala… laughable distractions.
Get the government out of the home loan business altogether.
Get the government out of the home business entirely.
Neither, it appears, is going to happen. El Duce is master.
Congratulation!
The Rich get richer plan.
House price won’t come down.
This will actually send prices up again, which is of course the goal.
We must serve our banker and politician mastahs
Installing a HOMEBUILDER as the national housing chief should have been the first clue that any ideas coming down the pike would NOT be good for the little guy, only the banks and the investor class.
But it goes so beautifully with dismantling the CA Coastal Commission, building the west coast into a hi-rise Miami (I mean Mar-a-Lago) from border to border, logging out and drilling all that useless nature. Cronies are drooling down their fronts uncontrollably.
Trump should mention how Epstein acquired his properties.
All new money is created by double entry bookkeeping. Not my opinion just a fact. Mandate that the central bank create the money simply as money and NOT DEBT like now and do the double entry bookeeping of equal debits and credits that sum to zero for everything at its point of retail sale so $100 of groceries only costs the consumer $50 and the central bank rebates the $50 worth of discounts back to the merchant so they get their full price of $100. $60k EV only costs $30k and then your loan payment is the retail point of Finance so the central bank pays for 50% of your loan payment so you get a $60k EV for the equivalent payment of a $15k loan. $500k house is discounted twice so you only pay the equivalent of a $125k loan. Everybody gets their full price, the market for virtually everything is doubled or even quadrupled and everyeconomic agent individual and commercial is happy, happy, happy. Don’t be a dipstick and look at it. Especially if you’re a libertarian or socialist…because it makes both of those utterly opposed theorists very happy.
Right now all the money is created as a credit to the 1% and a debt to the 99%.
FREE homes built by AI/robots for everyone!
When AI robots get to that point they will make sure humans no longer need a wasteful home for a useless human.
I think there will no longer be “waste” when superintelligence becomes our overlord. Molecules/elements are useful, no matter what present configurations they are in, whether plastic bottles, or humans.
But humans cause trouble and huge amounts of waste. ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence) will make what ever it needs without the aid of humans. Unlike insects humans will be easy to find and easier to eliminate. A series of lethal viruses spread by air and water can clear the earth of humans in a very short time. Of what use will humans be to superior machines?
It’s almost as big of a ‘game changer’ as standatrd mortgages going from 15 years to 30 years. 🙄
Thirty year mortgages are unheard of in the rest the world. That cat is already out of the bag.
Housing is quasi-socialized already anyway. May as well socialize the down payment also. What a joke.
The 50% Discount/Rebate is the answer and you saps can’t break out of your orthodoxies to see it. Pitiful.
Your idea is so magical and yet you can’t solve anything with it
The 50 year mortgage started 10 years ago , nothing new with this. Further more anyone going for it is a “Total Fool” The Banksters love that !
From what I understand the banks don’t even want to give them out anyway…unless the government were to subsidize each loan in some way which is surely what traitor Trump has in mind (I voted for him the three times he won but I’m but not afraid to call him out on his many betrayals thus far).
“And once again the cult looks away as Trump’s meddling increases everywhere you look.”
I’ve read through some comments on conservative web sites on this subject, and I haven’t read where anyone thinks a 50-year mortgage is a good thing.
I would be fine with firing Pulte, so does that not make me part of the cult?
Good luck with ending Fannie & Freddie. That’s about as likely to happen as us eliminating half of the annual budget deficit.
FYI – This is the federal government, and there is a massive housing affordability problem. So the government is going to try different things to the extent they can. Obviously, Trump’s people don’t have a lock on stupid. The last I checked brain dead Biden’s administration came up with a lot of stupid ideas like OPEN BORDERS.
Grampa loves the word “trillions” and proposes going bigger than ACA
Trump: “We want a healthcare system where we pay the money to the people instead of the insurance companies. We’re gonna be working on that very hard over the next short period of time. Where the people get the money. We’re talking about trillions and trillions of dollars.”
That’s called single payor. It’s Canada.
Might as well do an interest only mortgage
Turn back the clock about 18 years ago and you’ll find them.
A 50 year mortgage would help very little on the “affordability front,” but it would potentially impose lots of fiscal risks on the taxpayer. In short, a typical, half-baked Trump idea. Next thing you he will hear, Trump will push for a 100 year mortgage. Epstein really seems to rule this country for now.
for a generation or so, between WW2 and the 70’s you bought a house, paid the mortgage off and spent the next decade or two packing money away for retirement
never gonna happen again
For th motivated and smart you buy a long in the tooth starter home in a great neighborhood and fix it up with your own sweat and create equity. Wash, rinse, repeat until you have a few homes and rentals. Sure it is hard work and you do not get to go out for dinner and drinks very often but the equity game is pretty straight forward. Work smarter and harder…
One needs to ditch the arms races of local school districts and higher education, along with so-called healthcare / health insurance.
Thirty year mortgages are unheard of in the rest of the world. So that train has already left the station decades ago.
Remember George Bailey’s “It’s a Wonderful Life”? Or “the GI Bill comprising low interest, zero down payment home loans, with more favorable terms for new construction compared to existing housing. This encouraged millions of American families to move out of urban apartments and into suburban homes.”
It was also during the US Golden Age in Capitalism. The economy was driven in 2/3 by velocity, by putting savings back to work. Then the American Bankers Association came into power, eliminating Reg. Q ceilings. The FED’s Ph.Ds. don’t know a debit from a credit. An increase in bank-held savings shrinks GDP.
Now we also have the remuneration of IBDDs. So, that throws out the borrow short to lend long paradigm.
This Romulan cloaking device, the payment of interest on IBDDs, vastly exceeded the level of short-term interest rates which is still illegal per the FSRRA of 2006.
My dad always saved enough every few years to buy a new car until after 1975. Rather than take out a loan he bought used from then on. Then car loans became the norm. It got to 5 yrs then onto 6 where it probably wasn’t worth the risk of a default on a devalued car. RV loans are 10 yrs. The solution seems to be more debt and longer loans. Kinda sounds like the national debt doesn’t it.
I’m not suggesting a 50 year mortgage is a good idea – unless interest rates were EXTREAMLY low when you took it out – but is it ‘illegal’ currently? I don’t understand why this is even something that would be proposed. It seems like the government should have no say in the matter.
Not illegal but Fannie and Freddie won’t buy/securitize a 50 year loan so in practice they don’t exist.
Since when did an organizational or institutional boundary like that slow Trump down for two seconds?
“It seems like the government should have no say in the matter.” Trump is arm-twisting banks to lend to debtors the banks had deemed bad credit risks. Welcome to the yet-more ‘upgraded’ (after Biden’s follies) land of the free.
I’m a Trump voter, but promoting 50-year mortgages is absolutely insane.