WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Sofia Hamilton: Why the 50-Year Mortgage Proposal Could Backfire

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

As the Trump administration and FHFA signal serious interest in creating a 50-year mortgage product to “boost affordability,” early analyses reveal some troubling trade-offs: minimal monthly savings, skyrocketing lifetime interest, and reduced equity growth that could trap families in debt for decades. Young Voices Spokesperson Sofia Hamilton joins WRFH to offer a nonpartisan breakdown of why this proposal may worsen, rather than solve, the housing crisis, especially for younger Americans already locked out of the market.

You are listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.1.7 FM. My name is Maddie Grace Watson, and today I am bringing you the Sophia Hamilton interview. Sophia Hamilton is a policy analyst at Americans for Prosperity, where she focuses on health care at the state and federal levels. She is also a social mobility fellow at Young Voices, writing and commentating on issues. related to housing, which she'll be talking with us about today, harm reduction and criminal justice reform. Previously, Sophia was a research associate at the Cato Institute, where she studied policy issues related to drugs, poverty, housing, and women's health. Sophia's work has been featured in Reason, Real Clear Policy, Los Angeles Daily News, Washington Examiner, and MSNBC. She's made guest appearances on Fox News, The Young Turks, the Federal,

real America's voice, the Scott Sloan show, point of view radio, and numerous other outlets. Today, she is coming to us to discuss the impossible economics of today's market firsthand, and she's going to be delivering us some data-driven analysis on something called the 50-year mortgage. Now, Sophia's going to do a much better job at explaining what that is that I am, so without further ado, let's head on into that interview. So starting off, some of our listeners may not know what the 50-year mortgage is. Can you kind of give a little bit of a brief rundown of what that is for them? Yeah.

So a 50-year mortgage is a proposal that President Trump has come up with in the last two weeks. So just for everyone's reference, right now we have 15-year and 30-year mortgages. And so the idea behind the 50-year mortgage is it will. would make it more affordable for more people to buy a home because it would lower the monthly payments. With a 15-year, you're paying the most money per month under your mortgage because you're paying off the house quicker. And so you would be paying less each month under the 50-year mortgage under this proposal. Now, what kind of effect would this, in turn, have on the real estate market? You know, it's hard to say because this hasn't been implemented. We've had the idea

of 40-year mortgages floated before, and it never took off because it wasn't popular. So some people that are much better at math than I am have looked at the numbers here and have given us some rough estimations as to how personally a 50-year mortgage would affect you. So under that 50-year mortgage, you would expect to pay about $120 to $250 less a month, which is nice. That's some good pocket change. But your interest, if you stick out that entire 50-year mortgage, you would be doubling the amount of interest that you're paying under that 50-year mortgage compared to a 15 or 30-year mortgage.

So this could have big effects on the economy. I think if a lot of people are trying to go into these homes and the $250 a month, makes the difference where they can own a home, that's putting them in a really tight financial decision. And so I think we could see more foreclosures here. We could have a situation that's very reminiscent of 2008 in the housing bubble. We've also seen a similar proposal internationally. So Japan's a really interesting example. Back in the 80s, they were having their own economic crisis and housing was not doing well there. So they proposed 50-year and 100-year mortgages.

And their mortgages were a little interesting where they passed down generationally. So you could go and get your grandma's 100-year mortgage and inherit that, and you'd still be paying off. So your entire generation would basically be in debt for this house. And that did not turn out great. for Japan. That really triggered the financial crisis that they saw in the late 80s and the 90s because the demand for housing increased because more people were able to afford the monthly

payment, which sounds great. You want more people to be able to afford that. So the demand for housing increased while the supply stayed stagnant and it's simple economics. The prices rose incredibly. So housing got so expensive and the bubble eventually burst because it's always going to burst. It's not just going to keep going up and up in price. And so when housing prices plummeted down, all of these people that paid high prices under their 100 year mortgages lost so much equity in the homes that they purchased and lost out on a lot of money and financial gains. Wow. I had never heard that story of Japan before. So I think that's a very interesting comparison

being at this end of it for us. With that, a lot of people looking at our generation to buy homes, what do you think there is kind of an alternative fix in front of us that we could look to or alter this plan or just go in a complete different direction as opposed to what it looks like this, where you're saying it might actually inflate prices instead. Yeah. So right now, buying a home seems so out of reach for Gen Z. For a lot of millennials, new data came out this month that shows that the median first-time home buyer is now 40 years old. So I don't know about you, but I have a long time until I reached that age. And I want to be able to buy a home like my parents did at my age and to grow a family.

there. And I appreciate President Trump acknowledging the housing crisis, the housing problems that we're seeing. But housing at its core is a state and local government issue. This federal intervention is not going to make it better for a lot of people. And it could really worsen the situation. So what we need to see is extensive zoning reform on the state and local level to increase the supply of housing. Because demand has been increasing, while supply has stayed stagnant. And if we don't see more types of housing being built, more housing in general,

then we're not going to be able to lower prices to meet that higher demand. And zoning is a really interesting policy issue. The state and local governments can basically have full control on what type of housing is built, whether it's apartments, townhomes, condos, single family homes, accessory dwelling units,

They can decide when it's built, where it's built, what it even has to look like, going into aesthetics. And all of those regulations make it really hard to build housing in the first place and add so many costs because you're having to meet all of the demands of the local and state governments that honestly aren't really needed, especially when it comes down to what your house has to look like. if it has to fit a certain architectural design. We don't need to be worrying about that right now. We need to be worrying about building more housing and building more types of housing fast. So, you know, you talked a little bit about Japan and then what it could potentially look like

if the president does follow through with this plan. How could we potentially see this 50-year mortgage plan affect the rest of the economic market and our other areas? You touched on it a little bit, but I'd love to dive into that a little bit further. Yeah. So it would really be a 50-year mortgage would help to artificially inflate the housing market. And so it would encourage more people to go in and buy homes. And, you know, I want more people to be able to buy homes.

I think that's a great aspiration. I personally want to be able to buy a home. but if you, if $150 to $250 is what's keeping you from buying a home, it's probably not a good financial decision for you to buy a home because what if you lose your job? That's, it's so many different things could happen where then your house could be foreclosed on because you can't pay your mortgage. And if that were to happen, I think we'd see a very similar situation that we saw in 2008 where the housing bubble burst.

It's affecting so many other areas of the financial market, like the stock market, jobs and employment. And so I really don't, I don't think we'll get to that point because I don't think that we're going to see this policy implemented because it's, it's seen a lot of backlash. I've been searching far and wide for positive, for anyone who's received this policy positively. and it's been it's been hard to find it seems like the only people that are in support of a 50 year mortgage are the banks and that's because they're the ones who are going to win from the situation because you're going to be paying way more interest to them and that house is going to get way more expensive and if you can't pay it then it gets foreclosed on and that's still a win for the banks if you're just now joining us we are currently talking to sophia hamilton about the

50-year mortgage, an economic proposal that President Trump recently announced floated out there about the housing market. So let's get right back on into that. But we are discussing the 50-year mortgage with Sophia Hamilton. Talking a little bit about that reaction, is this something that, like you said, you know, the banks are really the only ones that are kind of in support of that. Looking politics-wise, is this something that we've seen kind of a bipartisan a little backlash to, or what has that reaction on both sides of the aisle been like? It's been completely bipartisan, which it's funny because it's not often that we have bipartisan support or just bipartisan ideas coming together. And everyone, even diehard MAGA people have

been outraged by this policy proposal because it just doesn't make economic sense. And I really do want to commend President Trump for trying to come up with a solution and for even acknowledging that housing prices are insane and that our young people can't get into homes, can't buy homes, they can't compete in the market. But it's definitely just not a place for the federal government. And I think so many people are understanding of that and want the solution to be at the state and local government level where it should be. So with that kind of bipartisan opposition to it, do you, and obviously we don't know for certain, but what do you foresee President Trump's next move being when approaching this plan or in general? Do you think he'll propose something else, kind of back away?

Do we have any indication of that so far? We don't. It's very typical of President Trump where he floats an idea and then you're not sure how it's going to be implemented. And even if it's going to be implemented, he has been pretty dismissive of the backlash telling people that it just wouldn't really be a big deal to have more interest payments. But it's not really something that the president himself can do. So he's bringing forward this policy proposal for maybe the federal housing finance. agency to look into, to back the idea. But it's something that a lot of banks would then have to start proposing and having people to buy. And sure, some people would probably think that it's a good idea to get a 50-year mortgage because they see the lower monthly payments. But I think a lot of people are going to look deeper into it and see how much more interest they're going to be accruing. And so I just, I don't foresee this policy actually getting implemented, especially with how much backlash it's gotten. And if it does, I don't foresee a lot of people going and getting the 50-year

mortgages because when we saw the 40-year mortgage idea get floated, it just didn't catch on because it wasn't popular. People didn't want it. So we talked a little bit about Japan and obviously we have a bit of a different government setup than they do. But when they did do their 100-year mortgage, how did that kind of pass? And then was it, you know, something that people were required to do? Or was it something that people just in mass chose to opt into? Yeah. So I'm definitely not an expert on Japan's government structure and their politics. So I'm not sure how exactly that the 50 and 100 year mortgages were implemented there. But it definitely wasn't something forced upon people, but it was incredibly popular there.

because they were in such a horrible economic place and people were not able to buy homes. And that was the only way that they were able to. And I think they had, you know, Japan is a little bit of an extreme example here, given that it would be double the 50 year mortgage with it being 100 years and that it was passed down generationally. That's not something we do here in the United States. But it definitely caught on because it was easier to buy a home then. but it's now much more difficult to buy home.

And the housing market hasn't fully recovered since that crash in the late 80s and early 90s. What would you say of all of this is probably the biggest takeaway for young people who are looking at this housing market and looking at these options to take away from this situation and this proposal by the president? definitely look into the math because you can see I think you can really be enticed by those lower monthly payments and maybe if you're financially savvy enough and you get a 50 year mortgage you can refinance down the line but if $200 is between you and buying a home don't do it it's not a good financial decision and I know how much how great the desire is to buy a home And that's really just like one of like the peak parts of the American dream. But you can just wait out the housing market.

Hopefully the market fixes itself and prices go down. Though that's not the trend that we've been seeing. But I'd also really advocate for your state and local governments to start reforming their zoning laws. So it's legal to build more types of housing. And it becomes more affordable to go and own a home because the supply is increased. Awesome. And okay, so I know for a lot of young people, economics can sometimes seem kind of like an overwhelming thing to be informed of. Do you have any, I guess, broader advice or resources that people can go to to keep themselves informed on the economics and just that side of entering into, you know, adult life, I guess you could say. Yeah, I think some of the best resources on this side of, on these types of housing issues would be the National Realtors Association.

They've put out great data. And realtors are also very incentivized by the 50-year mortgage because that means they can sell more homes because more people can afford them. And they've even been saying, they've been putting out data showing how bad of an idea this could be. So I think that's a great place to go for information on housing, and they've been pretty reputable. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on here and help educate us on this issue. Of course. Thank you so much for having me. We are so grateful to Sophia Hamilton for coming on and joining us today, learning all about the 50-year mortgage.

If you missed most of the interview, you can catch it on our Radio Free Hillsdale website, where we upload all of our interviews, and you can go find Sophia on Twitter at Sophie Hamilton, S-O-F-I-E, H-A-M-I-L-T-O-N. She writes for young voices and also as a policy analyst at Americans for Prosperity, so you can find her work on there as well, as along with some other guest issues and features that she's been on with Reason, Real Clear Policy, Los Angeles Daily News, Washington Examiner, MSNBC, guest appearances on Fox News, The Young Turks, the Federalist, Real America's Voice, the Scott Sloan Show, and Point of View Radio. So thank you guys for joining us today as we discussed the 50-year mortgage with Sophia Hamilton. You can find her there or catch the rest of the interview online as well. Thank you so much for listening. You are on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.

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