2023 was the year the housing market cracked: The stark divisions between housing haves and have-nots became more visible than ever before, even in America’s already-unequal society. How you made out in this upheaval likely comes down to whether you bought a home before or during the pandemic. If you did, you skipped the pain and craze of this year’s market, locked in a (fairly) low mortgage rate, and maybe saw your home value appreciate; if you didn’t, you might feel like you never will.
As home prices and mortgage rates climbed to formerly unthinkable heights, housing affordability deteriorated beyond levels experienced at the height of the housing bubble. And although mortgage rates have fallen from their recent peak, they are still high, and so are home prices. The housing market story is one of winners and losers, of haves and have-nots. Which one you are “depends on who you are, and where you sit in sort of the housing ecosystem,” First American’s deputy chief economist, Odeta Kushi, told Fortune.
