Overview
- FHFA Director Bill Pulte says the administration is studying a 50-year loan, while President Trump downplayed it on Fox News as something that “might help a little bit,” signaling a cooler stance after early promotion.
- Analyses using Fannie Mae tools show monthly payments fall only modestly — for a median-priced home roughly a few hundred dollars — while total interest can approach double a 30-year loan and equity builds far more slowly.
- The product faces major barriers because Dodd-Frank limits qualified mortgages to 30 years and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac cannot back longer terms without regulatory or congressional changes.
- Economists warn a longer term could boost demand without adding homes, lifting prices and negating savings, and some Republicans including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie criticized the idea as risky for borrowers.
- Key details like interest-rate pricing, investor appetite, and secondary-market support remain unclear, and anonymous White House sources faulted Pulte for overselling benefits as feasibility and taxpayer exposure questions persist.