Are we seeing a mortgage rate lockdown?

mortgage

 

The premise of a mortgage rate lockdown is simple: so many American households have such low mortgage rates that some will never move once rates rise, which then locks up housing inventory. This is something I’ve never believed in because we hadn’t had a period where mortgage rates moved up so quickly and then held higher for an extended period. But now this is a real risk.

Typically we have a natural set of new listings each year; inventory rises in the spring and summer and then falls in the fall and winter. We are getting closer to that period where total inventory traditionally falls.