The 50-Year Mortgage Would Make Things Worse for Gen Z

H ow many times have you seen this meme on social media? It goes something like: “Boomers are selling their homes for $2 million after buying them in 1969 for 7 raspberries.”

Both political parties recognize that housing anxiety among the youth is an electoral vulnerability, given that self-professed socialist Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayoral election on a platform of making housing more affordable. The Trump administration believes it has the antidote: a 50-year mortgage. But Gen Zers, ever skeptical of the establishment though still susceptible to bad ideas (e.g., socialism), are more likely to view this proposal as a psyop to deny them a major life milestone and make them debtors forever.

Though tongue in cheek, the joke about Baby Boomers having bought a home for a bushel of corn or a few nickels reflects a real resentment among 18- to 29-year-olds toward their elders, for whom owning a home was an achievable rite of passage. In 1976 — the year the first Baby Boomers turned 30 — the median price of a home in the U.S. was $42,800. For those turning 30 now, the cost is $410,800, or nearly ten times as much (an increase that outpaced income gains). Whether the anti-Boomer grievance is warranted or not, my generation feels like homeownership will be impossible at the season of life when we most want to settle down into a more permanent dwelling. The statistics back that up. The median age for first-time homebuyers is now 40 years old.

My colleague Dan McLaughlin is correct to point out that Gen Z’s postponing or forgoing marriage and children is removing some of the impetus to get the front porch and white picket fence. There’s less of a reason to secure more square footage and a backyard when you don’t anticipate having little ones running around. But in our heart of hearts, the overwhelming majority of Gen Z, at 86 percent, want to own a home someday.

A 50-year mortgage, a significant jump up from the standard 30-year mortgage, means that the monthly debt payment for a home would be lower than with a 15- or 30-year mortgage. You’d think that would be music to Gen Z’s ears. But the buried lede is that those new buyers will likely never outright own the home they live in, debt-free. Those who commit to a 50-year mortgage would be paying mostly interest for over a decade. That’s one spooky amortization schedule. This is also disconcerting to a generation that is already in significant student loan debt, partially because our well-intentioned elders emphasized that a college degree was the main ticket to financial success. Like how the frenzy to make every kid college-educated resulted in ballooning student loan debt, the government’s push for homeownership regardless of credit status helped spark the Great Recession.

The 50-year mortgage is being marketed as a pain reliever to young people, but in many ways, it’s just rubbing it in. The product would deny Gen Z the chance to build equity in a home — and with it a sense of pride and attachment to one’s community — on anything approaching a reasonable timeline. Besides, Gen Z’s biggest barrier to entry these days isn’t so much the monthly mortgage payments but the down payment, for which they don’t have the savings. The majority of Gen Z are unable to put 20 percent down on a median-priced home, which would be about $80,000. Only 4 percent of Gen Z renters said they have more than $50,000 saved. Other options are available that don’t require that much money down, such as taking an FHA loan and paying mortgage insurance, although they have their own terms and drawbacks.

Some blame, of course, is due: Gen Z has a spending and budgeting problem. We are severely delinquent on credit card debt. In this culture of “treat yourself,” compounded by social media’s driving constant comparison to supposedly superior lifestyles, many young people treat as necessities what Boomers considered luxuries. While older generations took vacations once in a blue moon, Gen Z is watching peers “catch flights not feelings.” But the fact is that property values are, well, through the roof.

A 50-year mortgage would likely exacerbate the housing crisis. The government is already heavily involved in the mortgage industry, supposedly to help ease the path to homeownership. In 2023, government-backed loans accounted for about 31.6 percent of home-purchase loans. If the proposed 50-year mortgage means injecting a boatload of more money into the housing market, we are inflating demand without expanding supply, which in turn would raise prices further. This perpetuates the vicious cycle, with government stimulus continuing to make housing a speculative asset class for older generations. They’ll continue to benefit from appreciation — a $1.5 million, cookie-cutter three-bedroom in Florida without a pool or waterfront access defies all logic — while Gen Z gets none of it.

The 50-year mortgage also puts a Band-Aid on the situation while ignoring how we got here. Homes are more expensive partially because they have more amenities and space. In 1950, the average house was 983 square feet, but in 2025 the median home is 1,800 square feet. However, only 25 percent of the price increases in homes are attributable to quality improvements, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. There is more to the story.

During the Baby Boom era, the government encouraged  homeownership in a number of different ways. One was through the mortgage interest deduction. Another was the creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which purchased bundles of mortgages that provided more room for banks to lend money. Following the economic disruption caused by the September 11 attacks, the Fed slashed interest rates to stimulate the economy. At the same time, banks started packaging mortgages into increasingly exotic financial instruments on the derivatives market. Their lower exposure to risk made the lenders less concerned about the credit profile of borrowers. They issued subprime mortgages to borrowers with patchy credit, often at a fraction of the suggested 20 percent down payment. Though spreading around the risk created an easy-money environment that fueled the housing boom of the 2000s, it also meant a massive economic downturn once the whole thing came crashing down at the end of the decade.

Instead of learning its lesson, the Federal Reserve Board sought to revive the housing market by slashing the benchmark federal funds rate to near zero and then pursuing additional bond purchases to inject liquidity into the market. A similar strategy was pursued during Covid. With interest rates at historical lows and people who were working remotely eager to flee the cities for more spacious homes in the suburbs, there was another massive housing boom that eclipsed even the one from the 2000s. The subsequent increase in interest rates did not sufficiently dampen demand to make the cost of purchasing a home any more affordable.

On Fox Business the other day, I was asked, “Is Gen Z hoping for a housing market crash?”

I nodded. No one should be wishing for older generations to see their nests crumble, but young people are waiting for a correction. Then, maybe, we could own a home outright one day, instead of resigning ourselves to paying the bank every month until we’re old and gray.