E9 - 50-Year Mortgages Explained: The Strategy Banks Don’t Want You to Understand

When you hear “50-year mortgage,” most people instantly assume the worst — you’ll never pay it off or the interest must be insane.
But in this episode, Jaden breaks down why the real question isn’t whether it’s good or bad…
it’s how you use it.

Jaden walks through a simple whiteboard comparison of a $600,000 mortgage at 6.5%, showing why the payment difference between a 30-year and a 50-year loan (about $610 a month) can become a powerful tool if you redirect it with intention.

You’ll learn how that same $610/month, invested at 6.5%, grows to $2.5 million over 50 years — compared to only $900k in additional interest on the 50-year loan.

The episode reveals why payoff speed doesn’t equal progress, why banks prefer 15-year loans, why long-term fixed debt can sometimes benefit you more than the bank, and how this all directly connects to the core of Family Banking.

💡 In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why the 50-year mortgage is misunderstood, not dangerous
• The exact math behind 30-year vs. 50-year payments
• How banks use time and structure to win
• Why a longer fixed-rate loan can actually reduce bank control over time
• How to redirect cash flow into meaningful growth
• How Family Banking uses the same principle — money compounding while you use it

🔑 Key Takeaways:

“It’s not about the term length — it’s about what you do with the difference.”
 “The bank gets $900k, but with discipline, you can grow $2.5M.”
 “Long-term fixed debt can be a tool if you understand the structure.”
 “You don’t beat the bank by paying things off faster — you beat them by controlling the flow.”

Learn more at www.jadenzubal.com | Follow @jadenzubal | Join the *Before the Returns Weekly* newsletter

📩 Questions or ideas? Email: jadenzubal.wealth@gmail.com

⚖️ Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only. It is not financial, tax, or legal advice. Always consult with a qualified professional before making financial decisions.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

When you hear 50-year mortgage, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Most people instantly say, that's crazy, you'll never pay it off. Or I've heard a lot about the insane amount of interest that you're going to pay on a 50-year mortgage compared to, say, a 15-year or a 30-year. I've watched dozens of videos at this point, which is why we're going to talk about that in today's episode, because I want to give a little bit different perspective. Right? What if the length of the loan wasn't really the problem? What if it's actually the opportunity if you use it the right way? So today, we're not talking about 50-year mortgages as a trap. We're talking about why most people think too narrow when it comes to debt and how the right structure can change everything. Hello and welcome to another episode of Before the Returns. I'm your host, Jaden Zuball. Let's get into it. So whenever I find a new five financial idea that hits the headlines, it seems that the internet kind of loses its mind. There's all kinds of crazy stuff that comes out. Most of it is half-baked, there's very little thought that goes into it, and people just start to freak out over nothing. But if we start to dig a little bit deeper and understand what's happening, there's typically, in fact, I would almost go as far as saying there's almost always opportunity to be found in these types of moments. So instead of just jumping to extremes, meaning people think it's just a scam and it's so good for the banks and it's so bad for us. If we put a little bit more thought into it, we can start to figure out a bit more about what's happening here, right? So the question isn't necessarily is it good or bad? It's how do we use it? How do we take advantage of this new tool that might be coming out here pretty quick and make it do something that helps us? This is the just a broad idea here for a minute, but I think we can apply this model to almost everything in life. Meaning there are so many things that with the right perspective can be a great thing in our lives. But typically we take a poor perspective to it, and so we get a poor outcome, right? We don't understand things, we don't try to understand things, and then the outcome we get is just unfortunate. Paying something off faster doesn't always mean you're winning, right? I don't know if we've talked about this on the podcast yet, but I'm a big proponent of a 30-year mortgage. When you compare that to a 15-year mortgage, we're gonna show today why a 50-year mortgage can fit into that same conversation, but it really depends on what you actually do. All right, again, it's not just about debt or no debt, but it's about control, one of those fundamental things we've talked about here before. So let me show you exactly what I mean. Because when you see the math, it makes sense why a 50-year mortgage could actually be a smart move. Key word here is could. Alright, guys. So for this part of the episode, we're going to do a quick comparison here. I want to show some real numbers. So if you're listening to this on a podcast platform, feel free to pause right here, go take a look at the YouTube channel, pull up this episode on YouTube, and go through this exercise with me. It'll be very quick, but the math here will make all the difference in understanding even a 30-year versus a 50-year, and then you can apply that to the difference between a 15 and a 30-year as well, because it's all going to be similar in terms of outcomes that you get between each of these. First thing, let's first understand if we do a 30-year mortgage, what is going to happen? Let's say for example, we do$600,000 at 6.5%. So typical rates today. Okay. If we do that, we can expect to have a payment on this 30-year mortgage of around$3,792. Okay? So we need to get our comparison up here. So now let's say this is our 50-year right here.$600K at 6.5%. What's our payment on that? In this case, our payment is going to be$3,182. So what's the difference between these two numbers? Our difference is going to be$610 a month. Alright, that doesn't sound like a huge number if we're talking about 20 years longer on the mortgage. And this is why people are complaining about a 30 versus a 15, because you're only seeing that big of a difference in the payment, but you're going to pay, you'll see in a minute here, you're going to pay about a million dollars more in interest to use the 50 versus the 30. So why would I suggest that a 50 can actually be a pretty good deal for us? If you've been watching the podcast for a while, if you've been paying attention to the roots before returns idea, you might already know what's coming. But my thought is take that$610 a month, invest it. Let's say we only get a 6.5% return on that. So we're not getting anything special, right? I think most of you out there will recognize and see that you could do a lot better than 6.5% on your investments. But just for the sake of being fair and conservative, let's say that's all you can do. Say you can just get six and a half percent. Guess what? Six and a half percent on that six hundred and ten dollars a month that we're saving, if we did that for the full 50 years, that turns into a big number. That number is$2,526,000 and a little bit of change. Okay, so this number right here is gonna play a big role. Because now, if we look at our 30-year interest and our 50-year interest, guess what? There is a difference between these two of about 900,000. Okay, that means we paid nine hundred thousand more on our 50 year than we did on the 30 year. So that's a cost, right? 900,000 extra in interest that went to the bank. There's the problem, there's what people don't like it. They're paying$900,000 to the bank. But does$900,000 matter that much if we made$2.5 million? I don't think it does. I'm okay paying$900,000 if I can turn this little tiny$610 a month into$2.5 million over the same time period. This looks like a pretty big win to me. In fact, locking in 50 years of debt at 6.5%, not a bad deal because the bank has no ability to turn that money for 50 years. They gotta wait 50 years to get their money back with inflation, with everything that happens, I'm thinking this worked out pretty well in my favor. Right? This right here is compelling enough to me. I'd take a 50 year any day to get that result. All right, so that's the point. It's not about the term length, it's about what you do with the difference. If you use the lower payment to create growth, not consumption, time starts working for you instead of against you. Right? The banks love long loans. Or do they? Think of it this way. When you take a, let's just use the mortgages that currently exist. When you take a 30-year mortgage and compare it to a 15-year mortgage, have you ever noticed that banks often advertise 15-year mortgages as being this great thing with a much lower interest rate? And almost always you can get a lower rate on a 15-year than you can on a 30-year. That's because a 15-year allows a bank to get all of the money that they loaned out back quicker so they can loan out the money again, right? They can repeat the process, and then they can do it at whatever the rates are in that time. Like, for example, those of us who locked in 30-year mortgages during that 2020, 2021 window when rates were two and a half, three percent on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage, banks hate those loans today. That's a that is horrible for them. Because now they have to honor this contract for 30 years that allows you to sit on a 2.5% or 3% mortgage rate. Think of it that way when you think of a 50-year mortgage. You can lock in a rate that a bank can't change for 50 years, and let's say one day we end up with 8, 9, 10, 11% interest rates on mortgages, but you have a six and a half or a seven on your 50-year rate, you're doing really well in that window, right? That's something that a lot of people would be envious of, just like a lot of people are envious today of those that were able to lock in a 30-year mortgage at 2.5%. So part of it is perspective, right? And part of it is just understanding that a longer-term loan doesn't necessarily mean it's better for the bank. In a lot of cases, it can be better for us, and it can be harder for a bank because there's nothing they can do about it. Okay, so how does this tie into what we talked about last week? Last week we got into family banking, got into a little bit of the whole life insurance and how that all fits. The same principle that makes a 50-year mortgage profitable for banks can make it powerful for you if you own the system. Right? So if banks are getting that extra million dollars in interest, what if go back to our example that we talked about on the whiteboard for a minute, and I'm gonna even take a step back here. I said just a minute ago, a 50-year mortgage might not actually be better for the bank, it might be better for you, right? Because if it takes the bank an extra 20 years, and as our examples show, they only got$900,000 more in interest over a 20-year time period, but we were able to earn two and a half million dollars on the difference in our payment between using a 30-year and a 50-year. So there's a significant difference there. If we look at that and now we apply it to family banking, let's imagine we took that$610 a month, we ran it through our family bank, and then maybe we still invested in a couple of things. So now we got the extra capital in our hands because we chose a 50-year over a 30-year. We got to save that money in a place that kept it protected and growing for us. And then we still got to use it to invest in maybe some more real estate. Maybe we got a few more mortgages going on there, maybe we put it into some crypto or some stocks or whatever the things are that fit your strategy and fit what you're trying to accomplish. But now you start to have, again, more control. There's more strategy and more intention behind what you're doing. And so the outcome that you get is significantly better. To wrap all this up here, a 50-year mortgage isn't automatically good or bad, right? It's just a tool, just like anything else that we have available to us. If you don't understand it, if you don't like it, you don't have to use it. But if you do understand it, you can really make something incredible out of it, right? The difference between people who win and people who lose is what they do with the cash flow that is created, right? So that$610, the question is, what are you gonna do with it? If you have a consumer mindset and you take that$610 and you decide to buy a new car, yeah, the 50-year mortgage was not a win for you. But if you take that$610 and you invest it, it could be a big win. So next week, I'll show you how to start building your family banking system step by step, right? We'll get back into our normal process here, but I really wanted to take just a quick episode here and help people understand what a 50-year mortgage actually looks like when you do the math and why, in some cases, it's not a horrible thing. All right, money is the tool and purpose is the goal. And if this episode helped you shift how you think about mortgages, share it with someone who's ready to play the long game differently. And if you're watching this episode on YouTube, like and subscribe and follow along for more content. Thanks so much, and we'll talk to you next week.