{"id":224908,"date":"2026-09-21T00:02:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T00:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/its-discouraging-increasingly-expensive-housing-market-stymies-would-be-buyers-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T00:02:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T00:02:19","slug":"its-discouraging-increasingly-expensive-housing-market-stymies-would-be-buyers-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/its-discouraging-increasingly-expensive-housing-market-stymies-would-be-buyers-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s discouraging\u2019: Increasingly expensive housing market stymies would-be buyers – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

For You
Settings
news Alerts
There are no new alerts at this time
The average interest rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage soared to 7.2% this week, its highest in a year and a half. Coupled with home prices near record highs, it\u2019s putting the American dream of owning a home further out of reach for millions.
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to buy this big, beautiful house only to just sit in it, staring at each other, stressing about a mortgage payment every month,\u201d said Alexandra DeCandia, who teaches biology at Georgetown University.
DeCandia and her husband, Edward Schrom, both 33, are looking for their first home in the Washington area. They hope to start a family and want to buy a home before they do.
\u201cIt\u2019s something that\u2019s a huge decision and one that will impact us, as well as our future family,\u201d DeCandia said. \u201cIt\u2019s very stressful to try to figure that out in this shifting landscape.\u201d
Mortgage rates were on a downswing earlier this year, hitting 5.99% in late February. But ever since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, they have skyrocketed.
Mortgage interest rates are heavily influenced by the yield on 10-year Treasury bonds, which has been rising as oil prices soar and drive up the cost of goods across the economy.
And mortgage rates could keep rising. The Federal Reserve this week hiked its key interest rate<\/a> in an effort to get a handle on inflation \u2014 and it suggested it may raise rates again this year. Higher rates can drive up borrowing costs across the economy.
Meanwhile, the average home price nationwide is near a record high, at $429,100<\/a> as of August.
One bright spot for homebuyers, however, is inventory. There were 1.62 million unsold homes<\/a> on the market in August, according to the National Association of Realtors.
That\u2019s equal to 4.9 months\u2019 supply, which is measured as the time it would take at the current pace of sales to sell all those homes. That is the highest level in more than a decade, and it gives prospective homebuyers more room to negotiate prices.
Still, pending home sales \u2014 in which contracts have been signed but the sales haven\u2019t closed yet \u2014 fell 4.7%<\/a> over the past year, which economists attribute to higher mortgage rates.
Realtors say higher interest rates on mortgages, combined with inflation more broadly, are persuading some people to put off buying homes.
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely impacting the psyche of the buyer,\u201d said Kerry Adams, a Realtor with Compass Real Estate in the Washington area.
\u201cThey\u2019re saying: \u2018I\u2019m already feeling it at the gas pump, at the grocery store, and now I\u2019m feeling it in mortgage rates. Maybe I\u2019ll sit on the sidelines a little while longer.\u2019\u201d
Many young adults today are moving back in<\/a> with their parents instead of renting or buying their own homes.
Last year, a record 25.2 million adults<\/a> under 35 lived with their parents, according to Realtor.com<\/a>.
The median age of a first-time homebuyer today is 40<\/a>, an all-time high, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Ian Sohan, 26, hopes to buy a house in Virginia \u2014 but the math isn\u2019t looking good.
\u201cIt\u2019s discouraging,\u201d Sohan said. \u201cI\u2019d like to one day own my own home.\u201d
Sohan is looking for a house with his fianc\u00e9e, Eden Law, that has enough room for any future kids and maybe their moms, too.
In their area of Northern Virginia, houses that fit their needs start around $600,000. In the couple\u2019s ideal neighborhood, in Arlington, those houses are closer to $1 million.
\u201cI haven\u2019t quite been priced out of the market entirely,\u201d Sohan said. But he may \u201cget pushed out of the areas I\u2019d like to live in or maybe expect a longer commute than I really wanted.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s just making it a lot more intimidating to even go for the purchase and have the confidence that the economy will be enough to be able to afford that house five, 10 years from now, let alone 30 years,\u201d he said.
Kayla Steinberg is a producer at NBC News covering business and the economy.
Maya Huter is a\u00a0Producer at NBC News covering business and the economy.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For YouSettings news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeThe average interest rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage soared to 7.2% this week, its highest in a year and a half. Coupled with home prices near record highs, it\u2019s putting the American dream of owning a home further out of reach for millions.\u201cWe don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":224909,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}