50-Year Mortgages Are On The Way To New York

Trying to find a quality house that is both safe and affordable has been a pretty hard thing to accomplish over the last few years.

In places like the Big Apple and Queens City, the housing market has been booming. Housing supply, the amount of available houses to buy or rent, has been pretty slim. Buffalo, for example, has been the hottest housing market in America for the last 3 years in a row.

With such a hot market, the amount people are willing to spend to get into a house has been steadily increasing. It's been increasing so much that the average person has been having a hard time getting into a house, and things don't look like they're going to get better anytime soon.

50-Year Mortgages Are On The Way To New York

Because home affordability has been in the news a lot lately, a suggestion that President Trump made on his Truth Social social media platform has a lot of financial experts weighing the potential pros and cons of changing the standard conventional conforming mortgage from 30 years to 50 years.

READ MORE: How Much Money Do You Need To Afford The Average Buffalo House?

In an effort to help the nation recover from the Great Depression, the United States has endorsed the 30-year home mortgage as the standard. It was first introduced in the 1930s by the FHA to help stabilize the nation and give the average person the chance at owning a house by backing the loans with the full faith and credit of the United States.

In the years that have passed, the 30-year mortgage has helped millions of Americans become homeowners, but as prices have increased exponentially, more people are finding the average mortgage loan still unaffordable. While variations of the mortgage have existed for years, the President's suggestion of a 50-year mortgage has many people looking at this to see if it's an option.

If these loans come to fruition, then more people would be able to afford homes as the mortgage payments may be significantly lower, but at what cost?

How Much Would The Monthly Payment For the Average Buffalo House Be With A 50-Year Mortgage?

According to data from the Buffalo Niagara Association of REALTORS, the average home in the Buffalo region sells for $309,343 in 2025. That is nearly an 8% increase from 2024, and a 105% increase from 10 years ago in 2015.

Using the current interest rates, which, according to Fannie Mae, is 6.22% for a 30-year mortgage, you would have an approximate $2,571 monthly mortgage payment if you had a 5% down payment. If you did the same mortgage terms over 50 years, the payment would be approximately $2,362 per month.

With a savings of over $200 per month, that could make the difference between being able to buy a house or having to continue to rent. However, the real difference comes in how much money the bank would make from you in interest. With the 30-year mortgage option, in this scenario, you would pay more than $355,000 in interest over the 30 years; but the 50-year option would cost you more than $663,000 in interest over the 5 decades. At more than $300k in additional interest, the bank is poised to see a large increase in profit over time.

Is paying that much more in interest worth paying a little less per month? Only time will tell.