40 year mortgages

Images from Mother Jones magazine.

Have you heard my joke -- "polygamy is going to be legalized...because it takes 3 incomes to buy a house."

I've been thinking that one way to deal with workforce housing and housing around transit (in addition to the The Location Efficient Mortgage product) is to offer 40 year mortgages, based on income and household size (means-tested).

Since it's deductible, does it really matter if it's a longer term? This way people can live closer to where they work and/or would prefer to live.

(Speaking of incentives, the mortgage interest deduction should be capped at some amount beyond what is justifiable by social policy objectives (means-tested). It'd have to be weighted by Metro area, just like the salary adjustment program for federal workers. The way it's set up now is one of the contributing factors to the increase in size of the average house over the last 30 years.)


Index Keywords: housing