{"id":852343,"date":"2026-09-18T17:32:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T17:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/852343\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T17:32:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T17:32:13","slug":"high-mortgage-rates-and-home-prices-threaten-homeownership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/852343\/","title":{"rendered":"High mortgage rates and home prices threaten homeownership"},"content":{"rendered":"

Still, pending home sales \u2014 in which contracts have been signed but the sales haven\u2019t closed yet \u2014 fell 4.7%<\/a> over the past year, which economists attribute to higher mortgage rates.<\/p>\n

Realtors say higher interest rates on mortgages, combined with inflation more broadly, are persuading some people to put off buying homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely impacting the psyche of the buyer,\u201d said Kerry Adams, a Realtor with Compass Real Estate in the Washington area. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re saying: \u2018I\u2019m already feeling it at the gas pump, at the grocery store, and now I\u2019m feeling it in mortgage rates. Maybe I\u2019ll sit on the sidelines a little while longer.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Many young adults today are moving back in<\/a> with their parents instead of renting or buying their own homes. <\/p>\n

Last year, a record 25.2 million adults<\/a> under 35 lived with their parents, according to Realtor.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The median age of a first-time homebuyer today is 40<\/a>, an all-time high, according to the National Association of Realtors.<\/p>\n

Ian Sohan, 26, hopes to buy a house in Virginia \u2014 but the math isn\u2019t looking good.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s discouraging,\u201d Sohan said. \u201cI\u2019d like to one day own my own home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sohan is looking for a house with his fianc\u00e9e, Eden Law, that has enough room for any future kids and maybe their moms, too. <\/p>\n

In their area of Northern Virginia, houses that fit their needs start around $600,000. In the couple\u2019s ideal neighborhood, in Arlington, those houses are closer to $1 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t quite been priced out of the market entirely,\u201d Sohan said. But he may \u201cget pushed out of the areas I\u2019d like to live in or maybe expect a longer commute than I really wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just making it a lot more intimidating to even go for the purchase and have the confidence that the economy will be enough to be able to afford that house five, 10 years from now, let alone 30 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Still, pending home sales \u2014 in which contracts have been signed but the sales haven\u2019t closed yet \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":852344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":["post-852343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/852344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}