Longer Term Mortgages

A lower monthly payment sounds appealing but it may come at a much higher price. When buyers hear about 40 or 50-year mortgages, it's easy to see the appeal. The payment is smaller, the budget feels easier, and the dream home seems more within reach. But while stretching out a mortgage can make monthly payments more manageable, it also slows the pace of equity growth and dramatically increases the total interest you'll pay over time.

To show how this plays out, let's compare a $350,000 loan on a home purchased for $389,000, assuming an average Freddie Mac 30-year rate of 6.22%, a 40-year loan at 6.72%, and a 50-year loan at 7.22%. The table below shows how much you'd owe after 5, 10, and 15 years and how much equity you'd have if the home appreciated at a steady 3% per year.

At first glance, the longer-term loans appear attractive saving roughly $200 to $300 a month compared to a 30-year mortgage. But that smaller payment comes at a cost.

• Equity builds much more slowly. After 10 years, the 30-year borrower has nearly $228,000 in equity, while the 50-year borrower has only $186,000, a difference of over $40,000 in wealth.

• Interest piles up dramatically. Over the life of the loan, the 50-year mortgage racks up about $925,000 in interest, more than double what you'd pay on a 30-year loan.

• Wealth is delayed, not saved. Because your early payments go mostly to interest, it takes much longer to reach the point where your home is truly building financial security.

  
  

While a longer-term loan can make a monthly payment look more affordable, it stretches the payoff horizon, slows your path to equity, and significantly increases your total cost of homeownership. For most buyers, a 30-year mortgage strikes a better balance between affordability and wealth-building.

Before choosing your loan term, it's worth running the numbers and weighing not just what you can afford monthly but how quickly you want to own more of your home.