Yesterday, The Federal Reserve Bank of New York released results from its 2024 SCE Housing Survey, which provides information on consumers’ housing-related experiences and expectations. According to the survey, renters’ self-assessed probability of ever owning a home decreased by 4.3% to 40.1%, a record-low.
Why do so many renters think they’ll never be able to purchase a home? We can blame the jaw-dropping mortgage rates and listing prices:
- Almost three-fourths of renters feel that getting a mortgage is difficult, compared with 51% amid near-zero interest rates in 2021.
- Americans expect mortgage rates to keep climbing and home prices to go up 5.1% in the next 12 months, almost double the annual rise they expected in 2023.
Americans are also making less plans to move than ever. Only 13% expect to move in the next year, and 25% think they’ll move in the next three years.
Some homeowners are reluctant to move for fear of having to take out a new mortgage at a higher rate, reducing the number of homes on the market. Last year, almost 6 out of 10 homeowners had a mortgage rate lower than 4%, per Redfin.
But this is not a new trend, Americans have been moving less over the past few decades.
Related: First-Time Homebuyers, Here’s a Primer on Mortgage Rates
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