Build, Don’t Extend Mortgages

Proposals that lengthen mortgage terms (e.g., 50‑year loans) are a demand‑side fix that risks inflating prices, increasing household underwater exposure, and creating longer‑run fragility without addressing the supply bottleneck. Policy should prioritize permitting and construction fixes that increase housing units rather than expanding leverage that simply pushes more money at the same constrained housing stock. — This reframes the housing debate from credit engineering to supply‑side governance: choosing finance over building creates distributional and macro risks that deserve public scrutiny and must be central in national housing policy discussions.