Nearly every prospective homebuyer who responded to a recent poll said they will hesitate to purchase in 2026 if mortgage rates remain above 6% this year, underscoring the battle for sales that mortgage originators will once more embark on this spring with present activity seasonally subdued.
A report released Wednesday by Clever Real Estate emphasized just how narrow an opportunity many prospective homebuyers feel they have, given a range of affordability and inventory issues that have constrained home sales to three-decade lows for three consecutive years.
About 19 out of 20 respondents noted the psychological and financial threshold that a mortgage rate beginning with a 5-handle versus a 6-handle can break through. After briefly dipping below 6% in early January, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has remained in a narrow band in the low-6% range over the past three weeks.
And housing economists widely project it will hover around this threshold through much of the year.
Clever’s survey explores the perspectives and expectations of 1,000 U.S. residents who stated they were planning to buy a home in 2026. Roughly two-thirds of would-be homebuyers say high mortgage rates have already delayed their plans to buy a home, and 58% say current rates make homeownership unattainable.
A whopping 94% of respondents said they would change their home-purchase plans if rates don’t fall below 6% in the coming year.
Mortgage rates began 2026 near annual lows just above 6%, marking a promising start for prospective homebuyers and lenders. The 30-year rate averaged 6.06% recently, according to Freddie Mac, its lowest rate in more than three years.
While refinances and purchases have subsequently risen, refinance growth has outpaced purchase activity. A record number of contract cancellations in December set back sales that were expected to close, as pending home sales also plunged more than 9% that month.
Now that rates have stalled above 6%, future easing will largely depend on investor sentiment around long-term inflation expectations and the pace of additional interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.
“We had 3% core PCE inflation over the 12 months ending in December, and that’s pretty much what we had the year before, so on net, no progress,” said Jerome Powell, chair of the U.S. central bank, after officials voted to leave the federal funds rate unchanged last week.
The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, was 2.8% in November, but the central bank has a stated target of bringing that down to 2%.
Nick Pisano, who wrote the Clever report, told Scotsman Guide that a few things explain the significance of the 6-handle mortgage threshold, with the psychology of buyers being likely the most important among them.
“Within recent memory, mortgages rates were half or less of what they are now. Even before the COVID-era plunge in rates, many have memories of interest rates hovering in the 3% to 5% range for about a decade before that, as a result of the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession,” commented Pisano, adding that buyers are also contending with high home prices.
“For those in their prime homebuying years of their 30s and 40s, these historically low rates may seem normal to them, as 37% of those surveyed say that ‘good’ rates only begin below 4% and nearly two-thirds (62%) say ‘good’ rates are only under 5%,” he added.
One factor that could anchor average 30-year fixed mortgage rates above 6% would be yields on 10-year Treasury bonds, to which mortgage rates are benchmarked. For mortgage rates to substantially drop below 6% in 2026, Clever estimates 10-year yields would need to fall below 4% in the coming months. They currently sit between 4.1% and 4.3%.
John Donikian, branch manager at Best Interest Financial, called the bond market sentiment the most underrated factor.
“How investors feel about growth and inflation expectations matters more than what the Fed says at a press conference,” he commented in a statement accompanying the new figures from Clever. “Housing demand data itself is also underrated — it feeds directly back into rate expectations.”
Donikian predicts that mortgage rates will move within a narrow range, with volatility tied to incoming economic data during the year.
“Unless the economy clearly breaks or inflation decisively rolls over, rates are more likely to hover in the low- to mid-6% range rather than fall meaningfully below it,” he said.
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Ryan Kingsley contributed reporting.
