An aerial view of homes in San Francisco, Aug. 27, 2025.Justin Sullivan | Getty ImagesThe share of U.S. homeowners with high rates on their mortgages has jumped sharply in just the last few years. That’s having a marked impact on the refinance market and a somewhat more muted impact on home sales. Rates have been front and center in the debate over how to improve home affordability — and for good reason. In 2022, after mortgage interest rates hit more than a dozen record lows, sparking a refinance bonanza, barely 10% of homeowners had 30-year fixed mortgages with rates above 5%. Just four years later, that share has jumped to over 30%, according to ICE Mortgage Technology. About 20% of borrowers have mortgages with a rate over 6%.Home sales have been less than robust over the last few years, with the National Association of Realtors reporting a historically low 4.06 million sales last year, basically unchanged from 2024. This, after hitting a 15-year high of 6.12 million home sales in 2022. More recent sales, combined with some cash-out refinancing, pushed the share of higher-interest-rate borrowers up.There has been a major focus by the Trump administration to lower mortgage rates as a way to boost home affordability. The president recently announced a plan for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy more than $200 billion in mortgage-backed bonds. It is still a subject of debate as to how much lower that would push mortgage rates once the purchase is made, but just the announcement alone caused rates to drop a bit. [embedded content]Industry experts say the actual purchases could shave perhaps about an eighth of a percentage point off the current 30-year rate, putting it right around 6%. Last year at this time, the ave …
