Securing a mortgage to buy a home has become more expensive than at any time since 2000, making people less likely to move and restricting the migration flows that have become more common during the pandemic.
The number of existing homes sold in the U.S. has fallen every month since February due in large part to spiking mortgage rates. The standard 30-year fixed mortgage rate started this year around 6% — already double the rate during the early part of the pandemic — and it has shot up over the last several months to reach 8% last week, a 23-year high.
Those elevated rates are having wide-reaching negative implications for the economy.
“Without the economic dynamism that comes with mobility — not only economic mobility but residential mobility that people also associate with their economic improvement — without that, it makes the economy sluggish,” National Association of Realtors Chief Economist Lawrence Yun told Bisnow.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Emily Wishingrad over at Bisnow
