First-time homebuyers hold off on purchases amid ‘slim’ pickings, high mortgage rates

Lindsey Vogel has been looking to buy her first home since February of this year. She hasn’t had any luck.

In Burke Centre, Va., where she’s actively looking, Vogel hasn’t found anything that would persuade her to seal the deal. That’s despite going to at least one open house every other week, she said.

“It’s very slim pickings. There’s just not a lot of inventory,” Vogel, a 34-year-old electrical designer at an energy company, told Yahoo Finance in an interview.

Another issue is mortgage rates, which have hovered over 6% for the past month — a far cry from the ultra-low rates seen early on in the pandemic.

“I am waiting for the rates to drop significantly. I wanted to see what’s out there and get a good idea. I am willing to buy if the right thing comes my way [in terms of] location and price point, but it just hasn’t happened,” she said.

Many aspiring homeowners like Vogel are continuing to sit on the sidelines of the housing market, turned off by high borrowing costs, record home prices, and a lack of supply. While in some of the most expensive regions in the country, the housing market is showing signs of life, there has yet to be a widespread rebound. Sales in the existing-home market slumped to the lowest level since 2010 during the month of September, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

Meanwhile, the housing market has persistently stayed out of reach for many first-time homebuyers. Last month, entry-level buyers made up 26% of the transactions in the resale market, matching the all-time low from August 2024 and November 2021, per data from the NAR.

Morgan Stanley’s housing strategist, Jim Egan, explains that one of the remaining pressures is the “lock-in effect,” which refers to homeowners postponing a move because they secured their mortgages at lower rates during the earlier part of the pandemic. This trend has limited the supply of homes on the market.

Egan said that the current mortgage rate is 2.5 percentage points higher than the rates most homeowners are paying on their existing loans. In fact, more than 80% of borrowers have mortgage rates that are lower than the current rates, according to Morgan Stanley’s findings.

“We’re still pretty far away from rates unlocking significant inventory,” Egan added.

House hunters may not get much more relief in the immediate term, according to Goldman Sachs research analyst Vinay Viswanathan. The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark rate by half a percentage point in September. But there is “limited room” for further major declines, the analyst noted.

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“We think the decline in mortgage rates has largely run its course,” Viswanathan wrote in a note to clients earlier this month.

In fact, mortgage rates have recently been rising as traders reassess their expectations on how aggressively the Fed will cut interest rates. Data from Freddie Mac shows the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose by 10 basis points to 6.54% last week from 6.44% a week earlier. This marks the highest level since August.

The recent rise has limited purchasing power. Applications for a mortgage to purchase a home fell 5% the week ending Oct. 18 compared to the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s unadjusted purchase index.

And even though today’s mortgage rates are more than a percentage point lower than they were at this time last year when rates were hovering near 8%, that’s still not enough to offset high home prices.

Data from the NAR shows the median home price increased 3% in September from a year ago to $404,500, marking the 15th consecutive month of annual price increases.

“[Home] prices are a little ghastly when you first think about it,” Whitney Ellingson, a 28-year-old soon-to-be mother and a server at a bar and grill restaurant, told Yahoo Finance. She and her fiancé are looking for their first home in Lafayette, Tenn.

For Ellingson, the math simply hasn’t added up.

“The interest rates [are] what’s mostly getting us,” Ellingson said. “Interest rates are going to bring your mortgage monthly payment up … If those can come back down at all, I think even at the prices that people are asking, it would be more within reason.”

Dani Romero is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X @daniromerotv.

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