
The reason U.S. home prices are falling is pretty simple: Pressurized affordability.
A historic mortgage rate shock—with the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate jumping from 3% to 6% this year—following the Pandemic Housing Boom's 41.3% run-up in U.S. home prices in just over two years has simply pushed many would-be buyers to their breaking point. Other borrowers, who must meet lenders' strict debt-to-income ratios, have lost mortgage eligibility altogether. That historic squeeze, which comes from prices and rates, is what Fortune calls "pressurized affordability."