The era of lower-than-ever mortgage rates is long gone, and it’s been replaced with rates hovering around 7%. But homeowners who locked in lower rates before or during the Pandemic Housing Boom aren’t selling. In fact, some of them are becoming “accidental landlords,” simply because they don’t want to lose their low rates of the past.
That being said, the so-called lock-in effect is putting pressure on both sides of the market. There aren’t as many buyers looking for new digs and not as many sellers looking to move up or downsize, if they’ll get stuck with a mortgage rate more than twice as high as their old one.
