By Stefanos Chen | The New York Times
Everyone is feeling the squeeze.
“Mortgage rates are sky high, prices are sky high, and there’s no inventory,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “This may be the worst time in my living history for the home buyer — it just doesn’t make sense.”
Mortgage rates recently broke 7 percent, the highest since 2002, and more than double what most borrowers paid near the start of the pandemic.
Between soaring prices and rising rates, the typical home buyer in October paid 77 percent more on their loan, per month, than they would have last year, according to Realtor.com. With a national median asking price of $425,000 and a 10 percent down payment, that works out to an additional $1,117 every month.
Home contract signings fell for the fourth straight month in September, down 31 percent, compared with September 2021, according to the National Association of Realtors. The same month, search interest in the phrase “U.S. Housing Bubble” reached a 15-year high, according to Google trends data. The searches were most popular in Idaho, where the median home price in Boise was $549,900 — an eye-popping 51 percent increase since September 2019, according to Realtor.com.
