{"id":67439,"date":"2025-12-22T11:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T11:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/67439\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T11:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T11:12:09","slug":"philadelphia-housing-market-pains-expected-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/67439\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia housing market pains expected in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Have a question about Philly\u2019s neighborhoods or the systems that shape them? PlanPhilly reporters want to hear from you! <a href=\"#Section1\">Ask us a question or send us a story idea you think we should cover.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>Philadelphia\u2019s housing market will continue to strain renters and homeowners in 2026, according to economists.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone is kind of stuck,\u201d said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody\u2019s Analytics.\n<\/p>\n<p>Home prices and mortgage rates remain elevated, creating a tight market with little mobility.\n  <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat means that people are staying in their homes, whether they own or rent, for much longer than they have historically,\u201d Zandi said.\n<\/p>\n<p>The cost of buying a home <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/philadelphia-real-estate-market-spring-prices-mortgage-rates\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">continues to sideline renters<\/a> because they\u2019re unable to afford a down payment or mortgage. At the same time, many homeowners aren\u2019t selling because they can\u2019t afford to move into a new place with higher monthly payments, a predicament that is often the result of refinancing during the pandemic, when rates were much lower.\n<\/p>\n<p>During the pandemic, mortgage rates were about half what they are today.\n<\/p>\n<p>Economists say this logjam is unlikely to loosen in 2026, particularly for middle- and lower-income households, in part because there aren\u2019t as many new units being built for those residents. That\u2019s particularly <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/philadelphia-home-repairs-negligent-landlords\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">problematic for low-income renters<\/a> who may want to move but can\u2019t because there aren\u2019t any places that are safe and affordable for them.\n<\/p>\n<p>By contrast, real estate developers are building more high-end and luxury homes. Over the last five years, the share of homes that sold for $1 million or more in the region is f<a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/philadelphia-region-luxury-home-sales-affordability-crisis\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ive times greater than it was in 2019<\/a>, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/drexel.edu\/~\/media\/Files\/lindyinstitute\/HousingReports\/2025_Phila_Housing_Reports\/PHPI_2025Q2.ashx?la=en\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">recent report<\/a> from the Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation at Drexel University.\n<\/p>\n<p>Kevin Gillen, a senior research fellow at Lindy, said this \u201cmini bubble\u201d could put pressure on affordability by raising prices for first-time homebuyers as well as homeowners looking to upgrade.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe housing market metaphorically is like a chain of dominos,\u201d Gillen said in September. \u201cIf I jam up the domino at the very end of the chain, it can jam up the whole chain.\u201d\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Have a question about Philly\u2019s neighborhoods or the systems that shape them? PlanPhilly reporters want to hear from&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2313,30806,69,71,70,2312],"class_list":["post-67439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-affordable-housing","tag-housing-crisis","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-planphilly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}