Posted on 11/15/2025 9:31:50 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Homeowners vote red. Renters vote blue.
Will President Donald Trump's 50-year mortgage make a red voter out of you?
That is what the president hoped on Saturday, when he posted the idea of stretching out the customary 30-year repayment terms for home mortgages to 50 years.
Turns out, that idea is smoke and mirrors. But at least Trump is recognizing that home affordability is a real crisis, not fake news.
"Affordability" is the campaign pledge that produced big wins on election day, and most of the winners were Democrats.
Affording a home is increasingly out of reach. The median age of the first-time homebuyer just hit 40 years old, according to the National Association of Realtors. Many women are worried about hitting the brick wall of no longer being able to bear children, and they still can't afford a starter home.
In 1991, the median age of someone buying their first home was 28, but in the last few years it's become the impossible dream for people even in their 30s. The implications are huge, not only for starting a family but also for voting.
Renters favor Democrats by almost two to one, according to data from the American National Election Studies. Homeowners are twice as likely as renters to identify as "strongly Republican," reports Aziz Sunderji, an economist who analyzed several decades of this data.
Starting in the 1970s, renters were slightly more inclined to vote Democratic than Republican, but in the last 20 years, they have swung sharply leftward.
Making homeownership possible is not only good policy. For Republicans, it's smart politics.
In New York City, people in their 30s who are earning good money -- as much as $120,000 or more, according to economics reporter John Carney -- cannot make the leap to homeownership. In the mayoral election, strong support for democratic socialist mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani came from Brooklyn neighborhoods inhabited by "downwardly mobile professionals" who are settling for cramped rental apartments and roommates. They have "no hope of buying a home," Carney reports.
Scalded by the election results across the nation last week, Trump floated the idea of a 50-year mortgage on Truth Social, with side-by-side pictures of himself and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who devised the 30-year mortgage after the Depression to relieve homeowners.
The 50-year mortgage is a nonstarter because it's prohibited by Dodd-Frank, among other reasons. But there are realistic steps to help first-time buyers get into the market.
Lowering mortgage rates will help. Many current homeowners, especially the elderly, who would like to downsize are locked into their current homes because they're financed at low rates. If they sell and buy a new property, they'll be stuck with higher interest rates. So they're waiting, keeping urgently needed inventory off the market.
Trump has been all over Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to lower interest rates. He's already done so twice, in September and October, and some predict another hike in December.
But long term, this is a problem of supply and demand. To increase the supply of new homes for sale, builders need to feel confident buyers will be able to pay the price. At the end of October, builder confidence was 37 out of 100, according to the National Association of Home Builders. What will boost their confidence? Job growth and consumer confidence.
With the government shutdown ending, job market data will soon be available again. Builders will be watching.
Meanwhile, politicians will have their eyes on the polls. Behind the poll numbers is widespread discontent that the American dream of homeownership is far out of reach. Republicans hoping to make gains in next year's midterm elections better pay attention.
Meanwhile, Democrats know where their votes are: renters. In many states Democrats are pushing towns with mostly single-family housing to build apartment buildings, including units to be rented to low-income families. Trump identifies this as the Democrats' "war on the suburbs."
In Connecticut, leftists aligned with Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont are ramming through a bill this week that mandates how much affordable rental housing every region of the state will build. Forcing small Connecticut towns like Easton or Wilton to build apartment buildings and accommodate a large influx of renters will push up property taxes, as the towns have to build sewer lines, bus lines and more schools. The higher property taxes go, the further out of reach buying a single-family home is, especially to first-time homebuyers.
But Democrats are turning a deaf ear to these objections. They know the fundamental truth. The more renters move into a red town, the more likely that town is to flip blue.
Might also help the younguns’ if their parents would help out with the down payment money as mine did 3+ decades ago.
More then, less later.
As my dad—now 19 years departed—would say: “That’s for more trips in the wheelchair down the hall of the nursing home”.
The 50 year mortgage idea is being mocked as debt slavery as it should. Trump needs to reconnect with his voters and the people because he lost it to the donor class in the last few weeks.
My son-in-law died and left my daughter a huge insurance payment and she sold their beautiul country house on 10 acres, leaving her with a little over a mil. She bought a house in town near me and her best friends, paid cash.
She’s forever complaining about property taxes. Went down to the city hall office connected to that problem and the very nice man told her there was nothing they could do about it. They are re so high he can’t afford to live here.
No he didn’t, that’s the fog of the Democrat and Globalist RINO propaganda that has you blinded.
A 50 year mortgage actually can make a lot of sense if you pay down the principle faster than required
And you build up equity in the process
Also , we are paying out the nose in section 8 housing and welfare
Putting people into 50 year mortgages can be huge if it privatizes public housing and gets people off of the welfare trap
> Renters favor Democrats by almost two to one,
So they want to bring prices down by flooding the country with more illegals? That’s not how supply and demand works.
I would like to think this should be non issue for a majority of seasoned citizens even if they still have some mortgage debt. Let's say a couple live in a $500K house and still have $200K in mortgage debt. If they downsize to a $300K house, their mortgage debt would be eliminated. It is likely they would have lower utility bills, property taxes and maintenance costs as well.
You’re not going to be able to fix home “affordability” until you FIRST fix vehicle “affordability”.
How exactly do you think someone is going to drive back and forth from the burbs where those houses are?
People have to be mobile in this country just to get out the door from their parent’s house.
If the government wants to make housing more affordable then bring back the first time home buyer TAX Credit.
Meaning, you actually have to pay taxes to get it,
The other thing they could do is offer some type of incentive for older people to downsize.
I am in my third house.
Bought the first in 1990 for 125.
Sold it five years later and bought a house in a better area for 175.
Lived there for 17 years.
Then bought a house for 270 with 12 acres at 2 3/8 percent.
Paid off that mortgage three years ago.
It was only $70 to start with.
The issue is now a smaller house or some free standing condos are worth more than the house I have been in now for almost 15 years.
So, until I can no longer take care of the property for I have no incentive to downsize.
If the government wants to incentivise people like me to sell there has to be something to motivate me.
How about taking 20 to 30 million illegals out of the houseing market first and see what that does to demand for housing and prices.
“Might also help the younguns’ if their parents would help out with the down payment money as mine did 3+ decades ago.”
That is nice if it’s possible. We supported our parents in their old age, but they never had given any of us a dime to start our adult lives. They just didn’t have it to give.
Probably that’s for the best in the long run as we learned to be self sufficient.
In my neck of the Upstate NY neck of the woods the few new private sector homes that have gone up have been McMansions so expensive that you’d need a 50 year mortgage to buy them.
Right now the only affordable homes are very overpriced dumps.
Most of both are going unsold or are sold below the asking price.
I’m seeing price lowered a lot.
Another problem is the folks in the nicer affordable homes can’t afford to move if they’d like to do that.
And then there’s NYS with its confiscatory property taxes, regulations, high cost of living...
With respect, Mr. President, a fifty year mortgage won’t solve any of the above.
It will just enable it.
Sir, I don’t know what the heck you are thinking.
Land and homes are just outrageously priced. The land values surrounding our property has literally doubled in the last five years. Housing values pretty much the same.
I blame it on realtors. Every time a property turns over the price has to be raised so a profit can be shown. Realtors are the ones determining a market value and the customers are the ones dumb enough to pay it.
And when I bought my first new car, the maximum loan term was 36 months. When is the last time you saw a dealership advertising a 36 month loan on a new car?
Just because the length of the mortgage is 50 years doesn’t mean you have to take 50 years to pay it off.
Bkmk
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