50-Year Mortgage from Trump: What's the Catch?

Alright, so I saw this headline floating around: the Trump administration is apparently floating the idea of 50-year mortgages. Fifty. Freaking. Years.

The American Dream? More Like a Nightmare

Seriously, are they TRYING to turn us all into indentured servants? "Thanks to President Trump, we are indeed working on The 50-year Mortgage – a complete game changer,” Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte said. Oh, it'll be a game changer alright. A game where the banks win, and everyone else loses.

Pulte also had the nerve to say that they're "laser focused on ensuring the American Dream for YOUNG PEOPLE." Laser focused on ensuring they're shackled to debt until they're drawing Social Security, maybe. Let's be real, the American Dream is already a punchline for most millennials and Gen Z. Now they want to make it a multi-generational curse?

They’re dangling the carrot of lower monthly payments. Fannie Mae's calculator says you might save a couple hundred bucks a month on a $400,000 house. Big deal. You know what you won't be saving? Your sanity, as you watch the interest pile up for half a century.

Economist Tyler Cowen ran this through GPT-5 (because apparently, that's what economists do now?) and even that thing spat out a warning about higher house prices and slower equity buildup. And offcourse, the increased risk of default.

And here's the kicker: Marjorie Taylor Greene is against it. MTG! When she's the voice of reason, you know we're in deep trouble. She gets it: "people pay far more in interest over time and die before they ever pay off their home." Exactly!

Smoke and Mirrors

The real problem isn't the length of the mortgage, it's the fact that housing is ridiculously expensive in the first place. We're short millions of homes because, well, builders stopped building after the last bubble burst. So, instead of actually fixing the supply issue, they're just trying to make the debt look more palatable. It's like putting lipstick on a pig, except the pig is a predatory lending scheme.

Pulte is also talking about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac taking equity stakes in private-sector companies, like some kind of weird government venture capital fund. "We hold all the cards," he bragged. Yeah, and they're playing a rigged game. What could possibly go wrong with the same entities that nearly crashed the entire global economy getting into the stock-picking business? I mean, come on.

The average age of a first-time homebuyer is now 40! Forty! That's insane. As ResiClub’s Lance Lambert pointed out, these folks are closer to retirement than they are to high school graduation. So, the solution is to give them a mortgage that lasts longer than their remaining lifespan? Makes perfect sense... if you're a vampire squid disguised as a housing official.

And adjustable-rate mortgages are making a comeback? Seriously? Haven't we learned anything from 2008? Are we just destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over again? I mean, I know history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes... loudly.

Why am I even surprised? This whole thing just feels like another distraction from the real issues. The system is broken, and instead of fixing it, they're offering us a Band-Aid made of debt and despair.

So, What's the Scam This Time?

This ain't about helping young people. It's about keeping the housing market afloat long enough for the rich to cash out before the whole thing collapses again. And we're the suckers who are going to be left holding the bag... for 50 years.