The Flawed Reasoning Arguing Against a 50-year Mortgage

Daniel Turklay

by Daniel Turklay, Facebook, Nov. 14, 2025-  For the record, I'm neither advocating for nor opposing 50-year mortgages. It's somewhat strange to even take a firm stance on this issue. Most of the objections to the 50-year mortgage just seem to be general objections to mortgages altogether. I was genuinely surprised to learn that 50-year options aren't currently permitted; I had assumed the 30-year norm resulted from established practices, banking risk assessments, and underwriting standards, not because it was apparently the maximum term allowed.

That said, while I remain personally impartial, the arguments against 50-year mortgages are full of flawed reasoning and selective (or flat-out dishonest) interpretations. It's difficult not to gravitate toward the supportive side simply by default. Proponents tend to be those who simply recognize that a 50-year loan operates in much the same way as a 30-year one, both in structure and purpose. If you have a solid grasp of how an amortization schedule functions, you'd probably be as inherently indifferent to this as I am.

Here are a few examples of those questionable objections:

"A 50-year mortgage is essentially renting from the bank!" Firstly, no it’s not. This pearl of wisdom overlooks that it's no more "renting" than a 30- or 15-year loan which, to be clear, is not renting at all. But if we're going to indulge this intentionally reductive notion and pretend any ongoing payment makes you a mere tenant, then fine: the 50-year version still outshines actual renting by locking in your "rent" against any hikes for five full decades. (Also, you own the place at the end, but I forgot that we’re forgetting about that for now.)

"The interest is heavily front-loaded!" Only if framed that way, but this arises naturally from borrowing the full amount at the outset. It's not a deliberate scheme to boost bank profits; it's simply the mathematics inherent to every amortization table. This applies equally to shorter-term loans.

"You'll rack up enormous interest—banks will thrive on it!" Lenders focus primarily on the interest rate rather than the duration. With a shorter loan, they can relend the funds multiple times within the same overall period, achieving similar gains. They really just want you to pay the money back so they can lend it again to somebody that they’ve more recently vetted and not somebody they deemed to be a good credit risk several years ago.

Indeed, sticking to minimum payments over 50 years will result in substantially higher total interest compared to a 30-year equivalent. However, that's purely the cost of extending the borrowing period at the same rate. You only pay the maximum if the loan runs to full term without additional contributions and nobody actually does that. But, and I'll cover this more later, practically nobody actually pays their loan like that.

Understanding amortization makes it straightforward to reduce the duration. For example, on a $350,000 loan at 6% over 50 years, an extra $5,000 toward principal in the first month eliminates over four years off the mortgage. Now you have a 46-year mortgage, but with the original, more affordable monthly payment. Doesn't seem so intimidating, does it?

That front-loading of interest is precisely what allows early overpayments to deliver substantial savings in time and expense. The effect wanes later as payments shift more toward principal. But this dynamic holds true across all mortgage terms.

Lastly, and this goes towards nearly every single objection to the 50-year term of the mortgage, almost no mortgages at all are paid for the full duration with only the minimum payments being made every month. Most people will throw additional money at the principal at some point. But even those that only pay the minimums will usually not make it to the end of the term because they’ll either a) refinance the house to get some of their equity out of it or b) sell the house after 5, 10, 15, or 20 years in which case the mortgage gets paid completely off at that time. In other words, almost nobody actually behaves in a way that gives the objections any persuasive value at all. The sad part is that those objecting either haven’t realized that or they’re being intentionally dishonest about that for reasons that aren’t entirely clear.

Daniel Turklay is a criminal defense trial attorney at Turklay Law, PLLC. He lives in Lebanon, Tennessee. 

Rod's Comment: I agree. 

In addition, almost no one keeps a 30-year mortgage for thirty years. The average time a person keeps a 30-year mortgage before selling the home or refinancing is approximately 8 to 12 years. I have paid off three thirty-year mortgages, and had none of them for thirty years. 

I spent most of my career as a housing counselor for a HUD-approved housing counseling agency and helped hundreds of poor people become homeowners. There are mortgages such as variable and graduated, which I would never recommend. I would not hesitate to recommend a 50-year mortgage to a person who would otherwise never become a homeowner.

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