We’ve recently heard proposals about a 50-year mortgage term here in the US. Unsurprisingly, most experts think this is a very bad idea as it will do nothing to lower home prices (and if anything, as I’ll try to prove below, it will likely raise prices). That said, in a vacuum where I was looking to buy a home and I was given the option to get a 50-year mortgage for only a small increase in the interest rate, I would do it in a heartbeat. I love the flexibility of a lower payment where I always can pay extra principal and amortize the mortgage much more quickly on my own terms. I also know that it’s statistically unlikely that I’ll live in the house anywhere near 30-50 years, so I’m really just managing my monthly payments and I want to do whatever I can to lower that payment. But in general, I think 50-year mortgages are bad for society because they will likely raise home prices and an even smaller fraction of your monthly payment will go to pay down principal.…