Would it work in the UK?
The Trump administration is exploring a radical extension of mortgage terms in the United States, floating the idea of a 50-year home loan that would sit alongside the traditional 30-year product. For British brokers watching from afar, the debate offers a preview of how far policymakers might go to tackle affordability – and what the trade-offs look like when they do.
The proposal has been trailed not in policy papers but on social media. Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), disclosed that officials are “working on The 50-year mortgage – a complete game changer”, crediting President Donald Trump for the idea and saying the measure is designed to improve “affordability”. Trump himself shared a graphic on Truth Social placing his portrait next to that of Franklin D Roosevelt under the slogan “Great American Presidents”, with “30-year mortgage” written above Roosevelt’s image and “50-year mortgage” above his own.
Roosevelt’s New Deal reforms created the modern US mortgage. The Federal Housing Administration was set up during the Great Depression to support long-term, fixed-rate loans, and by 1949 the 30-year term for newly built homes had become the standard. Trump’s plan, if implemented, would lengthen that horizon by another two decades, greatly stretching the amortisation period while easing monthly payments.
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At current pricing, the arithmetic is straightforward. The average rate on a 30-year US mortgage is about 6.22 per cent. On a $200,000 property with a 20 per cent deposit, that translates, according to figures cited from Fannie Mae, into a monthly payment of roughly $1,257 on a 30-year deal. On a 50-year schedule, the same loan would come down to around $1,143 a month. The catch is that those smaller instalments would continue for an extra 20 years and the total interest paid over the life of the loan would be far higher.
The idea is being floated against an increasingly strained backdrop. Survey data from Realtor.com suggest that 93 per cent of Americans now regard housing costs as excessive. People are also staying put for longer: the National Association of Realtors (NAR) estimates that the median homeowner tenure reached a record 11 years in 2025, while Redfin has reported that only 28 per cent of homes changed hands in the first nine months of the year – the lowest turnover rate in at least three decades.
Those who do manage to buy are older than ever. The typical first-time purchaser in the US is now 40, also a record high, according to NAR. As Jessica Lautz, the association’s deputy chief economist and vice president of research, put it: “The historically low share of first-time buyers underscores the real-world consequences of a housing market starved for affordable inventory.”
For UK brokers accustomed to 25–35 year capital-and-interest loans, with some lenders now stretching to 40 years, the American discussion around affordability will sound familiar. Extending term is one of the few levers that can make a given loan size appear affordable on a stress-tested basis. The question is whether easing the monthly burden in this way, particularly over half a century, actually helps borrowers or simply locks them into very long debt tails and encourages further house price inflation.
In the US, reaction has been sharply divided. Critics on the political right have led much of the backlash. On X, Georgia Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote: “I don’t like 50 year mortgages as the solution to the housing affordability crisis. It will ultimately reward the banks, mortgage lenders and home builders while people pay far more in interest over time and die before they ever pay off their home. In debt forever, in debt for life!”
Representative Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, asked: “How is ‘here, enjoy this 50 year mortgage’ different from ‘you will own nothing and you will like it.’” Maggie Anders of the Foundation for Economic Education warned: “Young Americans don't want to be debt slaves for the rest of their lives. We want cheaper houses, which can only be accomplished by increasing the supply through deregulation.”
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Housing specialists have also raised technical objections. Graham Stephan, a real estate investor and commentator, argued that “A 50-Year mortgage would allow you to buy approximately 10 percent more house (or save about 10 percent) at the expense of nearly DOUBLING your payment schedule. There's no way that ends well.
“A 50-year mortgage isn't worth it and won't add much benefit since your mortgage interest is front-loaded. Homeowners will have very little, if any, equity by the time they sell (homeowners keep their home an average of 11.8 years). It sounds good on paper, but financially, it makes very little sense.”
Logan Mohtashami, lead analyst at HousingWire, warned against lengthening amortisation at all. “I understand that we have housing affordability challenges in America, but subsidizing more demand from 30- to 50-year mortgages is not the policy we want to take now. Housing has to balance itself out through slowing home-price growth and wages increasing—as it has for many decades. To add another subsidization to the market just prevents that healing process from occurring, which also prevents less equity build out as well. So I am not a fan of any increasing in the amortization, the 30-year fixed is perfectly fine as is.”
Others see merit in the proposal. Pulte has defended the policy as one tool among many, telling his followers: “We hear you. We are laser focused on ensuring the American Dream for YOUNG PEOPLE and that can only happen on the economic level of homebuying. A 50 Year Mortgage is simply a potential weapon in a WIDE arsenal of solutions that we are developing right now. STAY TUNED!”
Some investors and market participants have echoed that enthusiasm. John Pompliano wrote: “The 30 year mortgage is one of the best financial products available to Americans. 50 years is even better.” A cryptocurrency commentator known as Crypto Wendy argued: “I don’t think a 50-year mortgage is bad. It gives everyone more flexibility financially You can pay a mortgage off early. Not sure how else to lower home costs in 2025.”
The dispute has spilled into broader culture-war territory, with some voices on social media linking housing pressures to immigration and corporate ownership of residential property. Others have framed the proposal as a straightforward matter of choice: if borrowers understand the long-term costs and have the option to repay early, they argue, a longer term is simply another way to spread risk and make home ownership accessible to those who have been priced out.
For now, the policy is still at the drawing-board stage. Pulte has said only that officials are “working on” the plan, and neither the FHFA nor the administration has set out how such loans would be structured, which agencies or investors would back them, or how they would sit alongside existing products.
From a British perspective, the American debate offers several lessons. First, pushing terms ever longer is not a free lunch: the monthly number may fall, but the balance reduces painfully slowly. As Massie has pointed out in a follow-up post, the combination of a long term and higher rates means painfully slow capital repayment in the early years. That makes moving house harder and amplifies the risk of negative equity if prices fall.
Second, tampering with term length tends to interact with other constraints. In the UK, as in the US, affordability is not just about loan size and income multiples but also about the age profile of borrowers, regulatory caps and the underlying shortage of supply. The US experience shows how readily the debate on product design can be used to avoid more politically difficult questions around planning, taxation and institutional investment in housing.
Finally, the row underscores the importance of advice. Whether in Dallas or Doncaster, borrowers presented with an apparently simple way to cut monthly payments will need careful guidance on what that means over the life of the loan, how quickly they build equity, and what happens if they need or want to move.
Trump’s proposed 50-year mortgage may never make it from social media to statute. But for UK mortgage brokers, the controversy is a reminder that in an era of strained affordability, lengthening terms is likely to remain on the political menu – and that the industry will be on the front line in explaining the arithmetic, and the risks, to would-be homeowners.
Photo: Voice of America - http://www.voanews.com/a/3430100.html, Public Domain,
