Donald Trump is known for his crazy ideas, so when he floated the possibility of a new 50-year fixed mortgage, the uproar wasn’t entirely surprising … except the idea might not be as ludicrous as you think.

Instead of the maximum 30 years that borrowers typically choose as the time frame to pay off their loan, Trump’s idea would allow them to do it across 50 years.

50-year loans are no Band-Aid fix for our housing affordability problem.Credit: Matt Davidson

A lot of people immediately recoil at the idea of being in debt longer. After all, if you bought a home at 35 years old (the average age of first home buyers in Australia) or 38 years old (the average age of first home buyers in the US), you would be at least 85 by the time you paid it off.

If Australian life expectancy is anything to go by, women (with a life expectancy of 85.1 years) would have a month or two left to enjoy being debt-free. And men? Sorry, you’ll have to cough up cash from the afterlife for a few years … or pass it onto your kids for a while.

Some Australian lenders already offer 40-year loans. And it’s far from the first time loan terms have been extended. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, 25-year loans (and even 20-year loans) were much more common. Each time, the lengthening has generally been in response to higher property prices and seen as a way to improve housing affordability.

You can argue a 50-year loan allows buyers to get their foot in the door earlier because the monthly loan repayment on any given home would be smaller – and therefore accessible on a lower income.

But of course, you’d end up........

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