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November 13, 2025 12 mins
A $50k Mortgage Is A Good Idea
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Now Charleston's Morning News with Kelly and Blaze.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Putting down today's top stories, which includes getting back to work.
The White House overnight celebrating the end of the longest
government shutdown in US history. What else is making headlines
this morning?

Speaker 3 (00:16):
A new report says there's a young home buyer crisis
in the United States. According to the National Association of Realtors,
the typical age of first time home buyers climbed to
an all time high of forty years old. The report
also says the number of first time home buyers dropped
to a record low of twenty one percent in twenty
twenty five. On top of that, a Caldwell Banker report

(00:39):
says eighty four percent of gen z say they're putting
off major life milestones like getting married and having children,
just to afford to buy a home. Skyrocketing home prices
and high mortgage rates are to blame. The crisis has
prompted the White House to propose a new fifty year mortgage.

Speaker 4 (00:57):
So interestingly this came up.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
I was a live on Veterans Day on Tuesday board
the very freezing deck of the USS Yorktown. It was
a very touching tribute I streamed at nine four three WSC,
so follow us on our social If you missed it,
you can check it out there. The summer All Guard
performed their precision rifle drill on the flight deck there
as part of a Veterans Day events on Tuesday at

(01:20):
the Yorktown and the volunteers that were there that were
you know, ferrying people from you know, to part from
the parking lot, you know, to the events, said to me, Oh,
I listened to you and Blaize in the morning and
you brought up the fifty year mortgage and I thought
it was interesting. He said, you know, isn't it better
to collect some kind of equity as opposed to, you know,

(01:42):
write and rent checks. And I understand that, you know,
you and I discussed that, Yes it is, and I said, yeah,
I get where it's It hopefully puts the American dream
a little closer. Listened to the statistics that you're saying,
forty years old, first time home buyers, all time high.
None of those statistics are good. So you know, I

(02:03):
come in the administration for trying to do something about this.
It's just my initial thought was my god, fifty years
you know, and you know, I shared that with him,
you're never going to own your home, and he says, well,
and he.

Speaker 5 (02:17):
Made a good point.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Hardly anybody you know stays in their first home for
fifty years.

Speaker 4 (02:22):
So well, that's it. You can pity and run.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Yeah, you can't say you're never going to own your home.
I mean it gets you in. And the most important
thing you can do, no matter how painful it is,
is get yourself in. So this is a way to
get people in. It doesn't mean that you should live
with it for the next fifty years. No.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
My suggestion was double down on your payments if you can,
and cash in on the equity.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
I suppose, well, at some point you can do that.
But if you had the ability to double down on
your payments to begin with, then you wouldn't need a
fifty year mortgage.

Speaker 5 (02:54):
I'm talking about it being a goal. This is a
long haul.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Well, that should be your goal, whether you have a
thirty year mortgage, you're a fifteen year mortgage or a
fifty year mortgage. Right, And you know the part of
this is you can blame high interest rates, and you
can blame the economy and the high cost of housing,
and that's certainly a problem, but it's also a lack
of preparation on people's parts. So you know what, if

(03:21):
it takes you to forty years old to buy your
first home and you have to put off major life events,
it means that you haven't been preparing hard enough. And
sorry to tell you a hard truth, but you know,
my son just bought his first home last month, how
twenty seven, because he's been preparing. I didn't help him.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
I was getting ready to ask you have like hold
on it, but you're a realtor, like not, what does
that have to do with it?

Speaker 4 (03:48):
Well, not everybody has.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
A parent who is as educated or maybe I mean
not a lot of people.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
It has nothing to do with it. He did it
totally on his own. My dad was an architect. It
doesn't mean I know how to build buildings.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Well, but I would imagine you probably you So in
no way did you prepare your son and do as
you were doing right now saying, hey, son, put some
money away. Owning a home, you know is way better
than renting it. I'm sure at some point you you
helped implore home ownership as opposed to renting for the

(04:22):
rest of his life as.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
His parent, well, I mean, as his parent, and I
urge them and everybody that I come across. I'm like,
start investing as early as you can, and your life
will get easier as you get older. You know, you
have to start preparing. And that's my point from the
very beginning here of this conversation is that if you
find yourself at forty years old buying your first home

(04:45):
because you've been struggling, it means that you've been spending
your money in the wrong places and you haven't been preparing.
And if you have to put off getting married and
having kids and buying a home, sorry, but you're not
doing the right thing.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
This will be an interesting topic for your weekend real
estate show.

Speaker 5 (05:05):
Are you going to talk about that.

Speaker 4 (05:06):
Buy by the way, on your home three sixty?

Speaker 5 (05:08):
About the fifty year mortgage?

Speaker 3 (05:09):
Well, I mean there's not much to talk about.

Speaker 5 (05:11):
We just had a five minute conversation.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yeah, but I mean there's no no, there's not there's
no details of this fifty year market. Well, so I
mean it, you know, I mean, yeah, I'll probably mention it,
but I mean to delve into it. And I mean
that's the whole idea we do this constantly is try
to educate people on what they should do and the
importance of home ownership. And this isn't just a realtor

(05:37):
telling you you should buy a home because he's got
a dog in that fight. It's the number one source
of wealth for the majority of Americans and it's the
most important thing you can do to set yourself up
for the future. So you know, there's two important things
you should do. Is start contributing to your retirement fund
as early as you can. I don't care if you're

(05:59):
eighteen years years old. Start whether it's an IRA on
your own or a four to one K through work
or whatever it is. Start investing and start saving to
buy a home. And if you do those two things,
by the time you get to middle age, you'll be
sitting pretty more than likely.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
No, but if you're buying a home at forty and
that's the it's going to be a hard, hard climb.
Better be a quick one.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
Well, that's my point. So if you started preparing when
you were eighteen, you wouldn't find yourself in that situation
at forty. There's a new world record for bagpipers after
one hundreds gathered in Australia on Wednesday. The Australian Book
of Records confirmed the world record for biggest bagpipe ensemble
was broken in Melbourne after three hundred and seventy four

(06:43):
pipers outnumbered a previous records set in Bulgaria in twenty twelve.
The ensemble played acdc's It's a Long Way to the
Top If you want to rock and roll to a
crowd of thousands. Bands across the state had been practicing
for weeks in the lead up to the attempt. In
Some participants even expressed hope that the world record would

(07:04):
help revive interest in that art form.

Speaker 4 (07:08):
I hope so.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
My cousin's a bagpiper for the Charleston Pipe Band.

Speaker 4 (07:12):
Shout out to you, Hunter and I got.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
I have some of the audio here if you want
to listen to it from the record breaking. I almost
wish I was on hand. They had hundreds of people
on hand to watch this. You imagine how that how epic.

Speaker 5 (07:31):
That must have been.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
That's Awesome's what it is.

Speaker 4 (07:36):
Oh, the bagpipes love it?

Speaker 2 (07:40):
What were they decided to do acdc's.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
And there was thousands of people because the song has
bagpipes in it.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Well, that's that's a long way if you want to
rock and roll.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
Long Way to the Top. If you want a rock
and roll and it's one of the few songs that
people can think of that have bagpipes.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
Well, congratulate relations to them. Three and seventy four is
what they outnumbered the previous record, and wow, it was
set back in twenty twelve. This took some time in planning.
They interviewed some people and I noticed that the age
ranges of the bagpipers is quite interesting. I mean, I

(08:20):
mentioned my cousin, he's younger. He's in his twenties.

Speaker 5 (08:24):
Hunter. If I just got your age wrong, you'll let
me know.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
Well what the people interviewed, a lot of them are older,
so it'd be nice to see that this gets passed down.

Speaker 4 (08:35):
Picking up the bagpipes, well, they're.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
Hoping that it inspires people, and you know, as we
reported in the story, they're hoping that it'll help revive
interest in bagpiping. So when getting calls about our last
story about you know, first time home buyers in the
sorry state that they're in, I had mentioned that my
son bought his first home last month. He's twenty seven
years old, and you know, you had said that's because

(09:00):
his dad's a realtor and I said, well, that has
nothing to do with it. I mean, you know, I
just talk in colloquialisms, right, So of course I had
influence on him in that, you know, throughout his life,
instilling that they should prepare for the future. But my
point when I said, I have nothing to do with it.
He's a better investor than I am. I was never

(09:21):
any great investor, you know, and he's been investing in
the stock market and bitcoin and educating himself on all that,
and that had nothing to do with me. And I
meant more in a fashion of financially, I had nothing
to I didn't give him any money to do this.
He's been saving his money the whole time. Of course,
as a parent, I instilled him to prepare for the future.

(09:44):
But he deserves the credit, not me. And of course,
I mean I held I was his agent when he
bought it, of course, and I helped him through that process.
But you know, the most important thing of all of
this is to start saving money and educating yourself, whether
your parents are real to or not. So I can't
say when I said it has nothing to do with it,

(10:06):
I think he would have ended up in the exact
same place, you know, if he had a parent that
was any other thing for a living. Because he's a driven,
smart kid and he wanted to set himself up, so.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Gradualations for him to doing so, not on a fifty
year mortgage.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
Yeah, and so I didn't want to diminish, you know,
his accomplishment, that's all.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
And again, really child and the others don't own homes yet, right,
So to your point.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
No, there's several that own homes.

Speaker 5 (10:38):
They do.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, I thought maybe he was the only one that
owned a home and you know, given him the credit.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
No, he's the second from the youngest one. So there's
one more to go.

Speaker 4 (10:47):
No pressure in that one.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
It might be a while.

Speaker 4 (10:54):
Well there's fifty year mortgage.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
You're probably listening right now, shaking his head. But anyway,
because he does move on, he does listen. But a
fifty year mortgage is not a bad thing. It's not
as bad as you think it is, simply because like
I said, you know, the Chinese say the best time
to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The next
best time is today. So whether you've prepared or not,

(11:18):
start preparing if you haven't, and set yourself up. And
a fifty year mortgage is going to allow some people
to get into homes that otherwise couldn't. And the most
important step you can take is just get in there,
no matter how painful it is or whatever, and then
it'll get better from there. And I'll tell this story
real quick, just to give you an example. My dad,

(11:40):
when he was still alive, I was that I was
talking with him and he says, yeah, I just made
the last payment on our house. And I'm like, well,
that's fantastic. That must be great to not have a
mortgage payment anymore. And he's like, yeah, whatever. I'm like,
what do you mean? Yeah? Whatever? He goes, you know
how much my mortgage payment is three hundred and twenty
five dollars. So what is so expensive at the beginning

(12:06):
if you carry it out for the thirty years, becomes
very cheap at the end. Right, So it's all relative.
So the most important thing you can do is get
started and get yourself on the right track.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
Thanks for listening to the Charleston Morning News podcast. Catch
Kelly and Blaze weekday mornings from six to nine
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