Homebuyers spent much of 2024 and early 2025 struggling to break into a market with scarce listings and soaring prices. Affordable options were few, and many found themselves priced out before they could even make an offer.
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that mortgage rates stayed near 6.7% through the year. Higher borrowing costs made homes less affordable and kept many first-time buyers out of the market. Meanwhile, existing homeowners saw their property values continue to rise.
At the same time, the housing market grew more unevenly over the recent years. Cash buyers reached record numbers, while first-time buyers hit their lowest share in history.
The NAR also pointed out in a statement that “the share of first-time homebuyers dropped to a record low of 21%, while the typical age of first-time buyers climbed to an all-time high of 40 years.”
More NAR data shows that the number of first-time buyers has dropped by nearly half since 2007, right before the Great Recession. The report points to a growing gap, with younger families building far less home equity than earlier generations did.
Kevin O’Leary On New Mortgage Plan
Policymakers have been trying to respond to the challenges in the housing market, but to no avail. President Donald Trump suggested introducing a 50-year mortgage as an option alongside the usual 30- and 15-year loans.
Kevin O’Leary had some bones to pick with this suggestion. On X, he tweeted, “I don’t think that’s really going to change the metrics for people. What’s happened in the mortgage market over the last four years is we had this extraordinary period where interest rates were sub-4%, so mortgages were 3.8% to 4.2%, which is extraordinary over a 50-year metric.”
He went on to add to it by saying, “We have to remember, mortgages in America have been 7% forever, and many people bought homes or were successfully ending up owning all the equity in them at 7%.”
Kevin continued explaining his point by adding, “We even went up to 17% for a while (in the early 1980s). But during this really strange period, rates went down below 4%, and people yearned for that.”
O’Leary Explains His View on Trump’s Mortgage
Mr. Wonderful did not hold back on his disdain at the new proposed homeownership scheme. He said, “This is just kind of financial engineering, because with the amount of interest you’re going to pay over 50 years, you’ll never own the home.”
The idea of a 50-year mortgage feels a lot like renting because most of the payment would go toward interest, not the actual home. Borrowers would end up paying the bank for decades with little progress on owning the property itself.
Kevin also pointed out the same by saying, “That’s the problem. It’s the same as renting in my view, so I don’t like the idea.” He went on to add that “with this idea of a 50-year mortgage, if you’re 40, which is the average age of buying a home now, you’re gonna be friggin’ dead before the mortgage is paid off,” O’Leary wrote on LinkedIn. “So you’re never gonna own the house.”
The Real Cost of a 50-Year Mortgage
With a 6% fixed interest rate and a 20% down payment, a 50-year loan might look appealing because of smaller monthly payments. But the long-term cost tells a different story.
Take a $500,000 home, for example. Borrowing $400,000 on a 30-year mortgage would mean paying about $2,400 each month and roughly $463,000 in interest. Stretching that same loan to 50 years drops the payment to just over $2,100 but pushes total interest close to $867,000.
Now in the case of a $1 million home. A 30-year loan would cost around $4,800 a month with nearly $927,000 in interest. Extending it to 50 years lowers the monthly payment to about $4,200 but raises the lifetime interest to more than $1.7 million, which is almost double.
When the American Dream Starts Looking Like a Lifetime Loan
The housing market has become a test of patience and practicality for anyone trying to buy a home. Home prices remain high, borrowing is expensive, and affordable listings are almost impossible to find.
While proposals like a 50-year mortgage promise easier payments, they also risk turning homeowners into lifelong borrowers. As Kevin O’Leary points out, it could trap people in decades of debt without ever truly owning their homes. Stretching payments doesn’t fix affordability. The path to homeownership looks less like a milestone and more like a marathon in this economy.
Real relief will come only when more homes are built and prices find balance.
