Source: Redfin —
About half (51%) of U.S. homeowners with mortgages have a mortgage rate under 4%—substantially below today’s level of 5%. About one-third (32%) of all homeowners—including those without mortgages—have a mortgage rate under 4%. With rates now at their highest level in over a decade, many of these homeowners may be incentivized to stay put because selling their home and buying another could mean giving up their ultra-low mortgage rate and increasing their monthly housing bill. This may be contributing to a decline in home listings.
That’s according to a Redfin analysis of Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) data from the fourth quarter of 2021—the most recent period for which data was available. This report covers roughly 80 million owner-occupied U.S. households, of which about two-thirds (62%) have an outstanding mortgage. We refer to these households as “homeowners” throughout this analysis. The average mortgage rate was 4.2% as of the fourth quarter.
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