“You won’t lose the house. Everybody has three mortgages nowadays.” – Ghostbusters
What do you call a woman who sets her mortgage on fire? Bernadette.
I think we can mark November, 2025 as the time when everyone under 40 officially became a tenant in the People’s Republic of Rent. Remember when “owning a home” meant apple pie, picket fences, and fighting with the HOA over the definition of lawn ornaments and why your butter statue of Adrienne Barbeau was definitely not prohibited?
Yeah, that’s as gone as dialing a phone number and not having to listen to someone blabber in a foreign language about what number to press so that illegals can live here easily and comfortably.
Now?
Housing has morphed into a Wall Street rent farm, where millennials and Zoomers wheelbarrow their student loans in a feeble attempt to bid against hedge funds and the latest border-crossing brigade. A free market? Sure, but it’s a free market where Pee Wee Herman has to box Mike Tyson.
Trump highlighted the problem with a misstep: his genius plan for 50-year mortgages while comparing himself to that MAGA hero . . . FDR?
I mean, it is a plan that is ultimately worthy of FDR. That is, if kids like dying with a noose of interest around their necks.
It’s dark. A 50-year mortgage is crack for the financially illiterate. It shaves off a few hundred dollars a month in interest payments to delay actual ownership of the house for fifty years. Some anon did an analysis. On X®, Darth Powell (@vladtheinflator) did a decent analysis. It’s below:
The new pickup line: “Are you a house loan? Because I’ll have you around for the rest of my life.”
Double the interest paid. And even worse, since people often sell after seven years or so, they never build up any real equity in the house, just paying off interest. Oh, and did I mention that they’re floating fifteen year car loans?
Yeah. Though people have been getting damaged on cars for quite a while.
She was really thankful to them, she even said, “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you!”
Debt is a drug. It gets something now, for selling a bit of my life in the future, sort of like selling myself into indentured servitude. And housing is, while not a necessity, something that makes it easier to have a family. I myself have a mortgage. I could pay it off, but it’s at such a low interest rate, there’s not a good reason for me to do so since the interest rate I’m getting on that amount of cash higher.
Yay!
But Robert A. Heinlein had a quote: “Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats of domestic felicity.”
He’s right. I’ve made the point before, and I’ll make it again: money and banks exist for us to do things in the real world. To manifest them and the markets as tools of profit is really the biggest infection our society has right now. To be clear – it’s possible to make any sort of bet that one would like to make in the market. It’s gambling. And in the end, go back to the beginning: the first rule of gambling is that The House always wins.
I could never get a loan for the distillery I wanted to start. They said it was a whiskey business.
Letting The House make the decisions is why we are in this mess. Americans are too wealthy an don’t take on enough debt? Import poor people! They need debt, so we can sell debt to them!
A major reason that there are unending streams of illegal and legal immigrants flooding the shores of this nation like EBT users showing up at the soda pop and chip aisle after the SNAP benefits reload is that they are profitable.
What about the current situation isn’t perfect for banks? Large numbers of consumers taking loans longer than the life of the asset. I recall that one gentleman I was acquainted with owned a large number of apartments. He described that is, “It’s like I have an army of slaves. They go out and work, and every month they give me money that they worked for.”
That is how banks think of everyone, even their mothers. What about 2025 is something they don’t like? Owning all the houses? Having millions work hours each week just to pay interest?
They love 2025.
They don’t particularly care about the outcome or if they destroy all of Western Civilization, as long as there’s a quarterly profit in it for them.
What could go wrong?
Again, illegal and legal aliens are being subsidized both via direct welfare like SNAP, but also through programs like FHA loans. Not all of our problems with housing are downstream of immigration, but most of them are.
The most fundamental step is remigration. Voluntary, involuntary, it doesn’t matter. They need to go home. And, you can help. At least for the next three years, ICE is actually trying to get rid of illegals, so report them. They have quotas, so help them. Also, don’t be polite to them. They may be humans, sure, but they can be humans somewhere else.
Second, don’t buy products from companies that have replaced Americans with H-1Bs. This is harder since once an Indian gets in a company, their only goal is to go full Invasion of the Body Snatchers and replace everyone with Indians of their family (if possible) or caste (if they can’t hire their family). It’s like the Mafia, but without deodorant. Let your politicians know, especially if you’re living in a red state. Not about the deodorant bit, but about the replacement bit.
I recall reading that Vancouver had a similar problem a few years ago in that Chinese were buying real estate as a way to launder money. Zero Hedge would frequently show shotgun shacks there that were listing for a million plus and it was killing any chance for locals to buy real estate. I think the eventual solution to the problem was to impose a tax on property transactions coming from foreign buyers.
I’ve been hoping my state would do something similar, but targeting the transplants coming from high cost of living states like California and NY. They are destroying the housing market and making it impossible for locals to own a home. I’m not normally in favor of govt taxation, but I’m also tired of seeing local culture and lifestyle being destroyed at the whim of people who don’t originate from here.
Exactly.
In one way, you can see this as the problem with pretty much all of Western Civilization: people who want to think they’re being helpful and good are really just inflicting more pain on those they’re trying to help.
On the other hand, when I bought my first house back during the Carter inflation days, I noticed the origin of the word mortgage could be gage: measure and mort: death. Payments measured out to last until you die.
Longer lifespan? Let’s do a 50 year mortgage!
Empathy on a long term and universal basis is toxic.
50 year mortgages are a terrible idea but at least the house is likely to appreciate in value but a 15 year loan on a car that is a rapidly depreciating assets is financial suicide.
Houses don’t wear out as fast as cars, but they do wear out and so they are a depreciating asset.
Right????
Arthur,
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re : likely to appreciate
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You and I rarely disagree, but the current likelihood is the value of the property stays roughly the same.
(The exception is a few hundred thousand dang ILLxGxLS bidding against us, increasing the desirability through some ridiculous artificially-manufactured ‘scarcity’.
keyword : those wacky juice and their zany antics)
.
Fact is, escalating taxes and encroaching inner-city slum-trash can *decrease* any difference in starting value vs today’s value.
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Fact is, by disarming law-abiding citizens, legislators automatically *increase* the ease of car-jacking.
YouTube has hundreds of videos of heavily-armed car-jackers as young as 9yo.
.
If they can acquire their first set of wheels, they can cheerfully wreck it on the way to brunch and refreshments at your house, wreck it and walk away from it, them immediately hijack their next free transportation.
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The remote isolated immune neighborhood no longer exists.
What should we do about inner-city slum-trash and other ILLxGxLS?
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Some might say ‘Half-way To Afrika’.
I wouldn’t, of course, but some might…
They serve the same purpose as an interest-only loan, which they basically are. For people who strongly suspect their job will move, it makes sense to not worry about the principal and take the biggest loan you can and pocket the appreciation when you move. Difference being most (all I looked into at the time) interest-only loans you could not pay down the principal with extra payments. I’d have appreciated at least the option if it turned out I was wrong about having to move.
John you are spot on except for one item imho delayed gratification is a major issue. Having everything you are told you are supposed to have NOW, is only achieved by debt.
Minorities lacking this is the reason we are paying people to not steal too much. But the whole society is ate up with have it now.
The reason you are paying people to not steal too much is because you won’t stand up to name calling by your women and put the thieves in prison.
Yes. Delaying gratification is so 1950s.
Trump’s the disappointment that keeps on disappointing. Smoke & mirrors. He’s lucky that the alternative(s) have been much worse.
When I was 5 (1958), we bought a house, and the mortgage was 10 years with 20% down. Back in FDR’s days, it was 5 years & 50% down. 50 years?
Is there a website that identifies companies run by Pajeets?
Don’t know. I Google CEOs.
He’s proposing the ridiculous and tying it to the current standard as a way of turning public opinion against the current standard.
Well it certainly has worked in mobilizing his base.
We still call them tenants (as in tenant farmer) and they still call owners “lord” of the land. Nothing ever changes. They work to give 33% of the bounty in exchange for shelter. Even better, no further responsibility to them…
And when they’re no longer productive, they’re not your problem.
Adrienne Barbeau was pretty hot in the day, a butter statue might melt. Maybe use margarine…. lard would probably send the wrong message
Hahahaha!
And they wonder why the young men want to burn it all down. They have nothing to lose, and a chance at a future.
it is easier to burn the house down than to roof it, if all fails try communism….we are at a crossroads fight or bend over
You don’t roof a house you have no stake in. Especially when you can see the owner, who hates you and insults you every day, is tearing out the studs to sell for scrap.
Yes.
John,
I disagree on paying off the mortgage, low rate or no. The feeling of freedom is so worth it. We bought our current home in 2013 at 4.5 % with 20% down IIRC. I showed my wife the difference in interest paid if we paid our calculated payment, versus rounding it up to the next, even thousand every month. I think if that time it saved us about $70,000 in interest. I had also been a listener to Dave Ramsey, when I first read his book and started following him on the radio. I realized everything he was preaching was just common sense and about 75% of it I was already doing.
I became very motivated to not just round up, but to put every dollar available, after fully funding retirement accounts and also maintaining a cushion in our personal savings, towards the mortgage. we wound up paying off the mortgage in about seven or eight years, I think it was 2020 or 2021 when we made our final payment. Coincidentally, I was faced with the prospect of taking an unwanted experimental vaccine or losing my job. So many of my coworkers acted as if they didn’t have a choice, because of mortgages kids in college, etc. I had the financial freedom to act the way I wanted to, and I told him to take their job and shove it. Every month I don’t make a mortgage payment and I enjoy watching my bank balance increase, allowing me to put more money into PM and my brokerage account. Currently debt free in all forms, and if someday I wake up and decide, I don’t wanna go to work, I have the freedom to do just that.
Nice. I had a student loan with the final payment due in February 2013. There was no way that I was going to pay that off early – I mean if the world had ended in December 2012, I could have really put it to the man.
That’s the way but 2013 is a foreign country. Prices have doubled. Incomes have eroded. The idea of amortizing your mortgage down – accelerated or not, isn’t a thing anymore. Most people pay off as a function of moar asset inflation and selling into that appreciation. Prices always go up now. Seems they can’t or won’t let any correction happen anywhere in the market so that will work til it doesn’t. But even median income families are hand to mouth already. Our mortgage was 60%LTV when we bought three years ago but it was a shit hole and we had to dump more cash into it. So we overpaid twice based on any reasonable metric especially incomes in this area.
Will will never pay it off unless there’s a greater fool. We have no other debt and live cheap but when your annual 3.5% raise is eaten by $1000/mo increase in insurance the Dave Ramsey portfolio American type life is a luxury of the other half of the curve we are on.
The whole thing is ghetto culture now. Get yours. Gamble. Porn. Vape. Pills. And I get it. I’d burn this place down and go expat if I wasn’t already so sick of the browns.
Why oh why did he do this !?!? I mean at least let the effects of tariffs and the tax cuts and the scuttling of obamacare ripple through the economy.
Don’t foozle with anything else like the length of a mortgage.
I’m thinking that the cuts that have been made will begin to be felt the middle of next year.
We’ll see. I think we’re going to see that the economy is in a deep recession.
The upside is you don’t have to take out a 50-year note. Though automobiles already do a pretty good job of sorting out and punishing the innumerate for not paying attention in math, there’s always room for more. Particularly since they don’t seem to be learning the lesson very quickly.
It is NOT A REASON for the unaffordability that there are unending streams of illegal and legal immigrants flooding the shores of this geographical region circled by a line on a map. It IS A REASON for the unaffordability that you are paying deadbeats with your tax money.
Stop paying deadbeats with your taxes. Stop caring where new workers reside, you can’t hide from competing with them economically by building an iron curtain. “They’re lazy and they’re stealing our jobs!”
Someone does not understand supply and demand.
How about both?
How about both?
Country and Western. (Blues Brothers, for the philistines.)
Supply AND demand, I think.
Exactly.
After seeing some statistics about first year college students, I realized the vast majority of younger folks are woefully ignorant about how much they’re spending; much less of the huge extra amount spent to finance something they may die in before the mortgage is paid off. A large percentage can’t even perform 5th grade math. Compound interest is way beyond their understanding.
Their dream home is around 3000 square feet, built in a hurry, will require expensive upkeep, has high insurance costs, and all the unused space requires HVAC all year long. Of course, that’s not nearly as important as a master bath with enough space for a dance, and granite counter tops in the $60,000 kitchen for entertaining…if they can afford to entertain. I’m guessing builders like the extras, but this won’t last. Home prices have reached the point where even a 50 year mortgage won’t be enough. That, and every kid might not need a bedroom and their own bath. Place bunkbeds, referees the squabbles, and instill the thought they aren’t welcome to stay after they reach 18 years of age.
Well, I really like it when mine visit.
As one of those oft hated Boomers, I bought my first house in the mid 80’s paying about 13% interest on a 30 year mortgage.
We bought our current house for over $600k (we live in coastal SoCal) at around 6% interest in the mid 2000’s. After a couple of refis (and paying for 3 children to go to and live at various UCs), I paid off our house last year. Last year, I also gave 2 kids our used cars and paid cash for 2 new cars for us. I am currently helping my oldest son save up the 20% he needs to buy a house in today’s market.
50 year mortages are insane, but I feel young people’s pain at “you will own nothing and be happy.” Although, of course, many of them vote for the politicians who believe and practice just that.
As someone who spent his last couple of decades working in academia, I came to this side of the divide after sitting and voting on hiring committees where many of my old(er) White colleagues were so proud to hire anyone but White males.
Things are going to keep getting worse. White people……..what the f**k.
Exactly.
As one of those oft hated Boomers, I bought my first house in the mid 80’s paying about 13% interest on a 30 year mortgage.
We bought our current house for over $600k (we live in coastal SoCal) at around 6% interest in the mid 2000’s. After a couple of refis (and paying for 3 children to go to and live at various UCs), I paid off our house last year. Last year, I also gave 2 kids our used cars and paid cash for 2 new cars for us. I am currently helping my oldest son save up the 20% he needs to buy a house in today’s market.
50 year mortages are insane, but I feel young people’s pain at “you will own nothing and be happy.” Although, of course, many of them vote for the politicians who believe and practice just that.
As someone who spent his last couple of decades working in academia, I came to this side of the divide after sitting and voting on hiring committees where many of my old(er) White colleagues were so proud to hire anyone but White males.
Things are going to keep getting worse. White people……..what the f**k.
Johnny B
In 2004 we creatively financed our way into a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage on a, barely, 900 sq-ft house.
At 7.375%. Prime was 4.00%.
Even overpaying $100 a month on the principle will mean getting out from under in 2031 instead of 2034.
We had numerous friends who had much larger houses and newer cars. As their situations changed and they couldn’t sell their current house and get a new loan started on a different house, they all fell prey to their variable interest rates.
It’s a good thing their, boomer, parents still had the large family homes our friends grew up in.
Nicely done. It’s been a long time since I’ve been anywhere near a new car.
Smaller homes. Or build them yourself. Raised seven in less than 2000 sq. ft, and nobody died, we all got along. Get out of debt, and stay out.
The blame for the housing problem is:
A) Government (all its policies)
B) Venture capitalists
C) An unconstitutional Federal Reserve and monetary system
D) All of the above
Correct answer is ‘D’. Address all sources of the problem.