How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My 52-year Mortgage

As Americans, we generally try to stay in debt. It’s what we do. We love our new cars, plasma TVs, and vacations. So it’s no surprise that many people are treading water living paycheck to paycheck.

It can’t get any worse though, or can it? Tesco Finance in the UK has started offering a 52-year mortgage. How long will it take for a fifty-two year mortgage to be offered by an American company?

Is this really a good idea? What kind of sick bastard wants to lock you into payments for your entire working life and then some?

If housing costs are too high, then the answer is NOT to push out the financing over a longer period. Yes, it is a valid trick to get a borrower into a house, but if someone defaults in year fifty-one of their mortgage, will they honestly foreclose?

At least in thirty years people generally live long enough to pay off their homes. Does it really make sense to sock a mortgage payment on someone well into their 70s or 80s? Perhaps for the bankers. After all, a penny financed is three pennies earned as far as they are concerned. But this fifty-two year mortgage scheme should have them questioning their ethics.

As mortgages go, a mortgage financed out over a longer term will mean a borrower can buy a more expensive house. Once the fifty-two year mortgage comes to the U.S., you can bet the advertisements will be along the lines of, “$3.6 MILLION DOLLAR HOME for only $2,400 a month!”

Here’s some FREE financial advice: If you can’t afford a house, then rent!

A fifty-two year mortgage is unethical, immoral and should be outlawed. Fifty-two year mortgages will only drive people into deeper debt faster, and will force the banking industry into selling real estate as they foreclose on houses after forty or fifty years of payments.