{"id":162053,"date":"2026-02-20T02:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T02:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/162053\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T02:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T02:35:09","slug":"pandemic-home-mortgage-rates-are-locked-in-but-those-rates-are-becoming-less-common-with-other-homes-increasing-their-rates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/162053\/","title":{"rendered":"Pandemic home mortgage rates are locked in but those rates are becoming less common, with other homes increasing their rates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Residents who had low mortgage rates when they bought their homes say they feel locked in with those rates, now that home mortgage rates<\/a> are increasing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“My rate is under 3% mortgage, and because of that, I’m really hesitant to sell,” said Lindsay Chase.<\/p>\n

Chase bought in Fort Lauderdale’<\/a>s Victoria Park neighborhood in 2020. <\/p>\n

She’s one of the few lucky ones still locked in with a low rate, which has become somewhat of a double-edged sword.<\/p>\n

“I have such a good interest rate now, and it’s not really in my best interest to buy another property to essentially double the interest rate,” Chase said.<\/p>\n

According to data from Homes.com, in the second half of 2025, more homeowners had mortgages with rates at or above 6% than those with loans below 3%.<\/p>\n

The website looked at data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency that shows this is the first time we’ve seen this since late 2020.<\/p>\n

“The majority of homeowners are at 6% now,” said realtor Justin Brooks.<\/p>\n

Brooks said the lock-in rate has been problematic for the market.<\/p>\n

Homeowners sat on the sidelines – they didn’t want to sell and lose the low interest rate for a higher one, which impacted inventory.<\/p>\n

But now, as we see a shift, along with mortgage rates expected to drop this year, he said things could change.<\/p>\n

“As those rates come to those mid-5’s and high-5’s at the end of the year, you’re going to see a slight uptick in inventory. Those lock-in effects, as we saw in the last course of a few years, they’re going to gradually and slowly dissipate,” Brooks said.<\/p>\n

That’s what Chase is waiting for. She said even a percent or two on the mortgage rate makes a big difference.<\/p>\n

“So I’m really looking forward to the rate dropping, that’s what is projected, and then I would consider potentially selling this property to get something a little bit larger and a better return,” Chase said.<\/p>\n

According to the National Association of Realtors, just a 1% decrease in mortgage rates, which is what’s predicted this year, could add about 5.5 million households nationwide to the pool of potential buyers.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents who had low mortgage rates when they bought their homes say they feel locked in with those…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[249,838,10692,123,125,124,841,807],"class_list":{"0":"post-162053","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-fort-lauderdale","9":"tag-home-prices","10":"tag-home-sales","11":"tag-miami","12":"tag-miami-headlines","13":"tag-miami-news","14":"tag-mortgage-rates","15":"tag-south-florida"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}