What Florida Homebuyers Should Know About Trump’s 50-year Mortgage Plan

By nearly every metric, it’s getting harder to buy a home in the United States.

In Tampa Bay, the median home price shot up about 14% to $398,000 in just the past four years, according to data from Florida Realtors. Wages have not kept up, leaving more would-be buyers trapped renting.

Across the country, the median age of first-time buyers is now 40, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. That’s a far cry from 1980s, when most first-time buyers were in their late 20s.

This month, President Donald Trump voiced his support for a potential fix: a 50-year mortgage.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump compared the idea to the creation of the 30-year mortgage under President Franklin Roosevelt. That innovation helped make homeownership the norm in the United States.

The logic is simple — if you lengthen the life of the loan from 30 years to 50, then the monthly payment will drop, lowering the barrier to entry for prospective home buyers.

But the longer it takes to pay down the interest, the higher the total costs will be at the end of the loan period. Plus, these loans would likely come with higher interest rates.

“It could get you into a house faster but in the long run, it’s not going to build equity as fast,” said Kimber White, president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers and a partner at Re Financial Services in Fort Lauderdale.

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An analysis from Realtor.com compared the cost of a typical 30-year mortgage to the estimated costs of a 50-year mortgage.

Assume a $400,000 loan, with 10% down at a 6.25% interest rate.

Though buyers could save around $250 on their monthly payments with a 50-year mortgage, they’d end up paying about $816,396 in interest.

Compare that to the $438,156 in interest they’d pay for a 30-year loan.

Manuela Hendrickson, broker and owner of the St. Petersburg real estate company Global Lifestyle, said if it comes down to renting versus owning with a 50-year mortgage, she would still opt for the mortgage.

“At least that way, you’re getting a portion of that equity,” she said.

Lei Wedge, a professor of finance at the University of South Florida’s Muma College of Business, said she fears many people might see this as a shortcut to homeownership without fully understanding the risks.

Those who buy a home in their 30s may not even live long enough to pay off the loan, she said.

“Even if you try to buy a home through a 50-year mortgage, as soon as your financial situation improves, you should try to make a bigger payment every month so you can pay it down,” she said.

But Hendrickson noted most buyers don’t stay in their homes for the entire length of the loan anyway. They could also potentially refinance to a 30-year loan down the line.

Though a 50-year mortgage may not be the right solution for everyone, White said he was encouraged to see Trump highlighting the issue of housing affordability.

Still, there are other aspects of homeownership that federal, state and local leaders could target to help bring prices down, he said.

“It’s not just the monthly payments, it’s the cost of the insurance and of the cost of building houses and the taxes that have gone up that’s hurting people too,” he said.

Wedge said lack of supply is one of the most pressing issues. She pointed to the increasing number of homes owned by institutional buyers.

An analysis from the Tampa Bay Times identified at least 117,000 investor-owned homes in Florida. “If you can place limits on those companies, then there would be more homes available,” she said.

In the meantime, Hendrickson said there are still options available to first-time homebuyers struggling to break into the market.

She recommended the statewide Hometown Heroes program which provides down-payment assistance and other assistance to Floridians working in certain professions. There are also several county and city-wide programs aimed at first-time buyers.

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