Americans are struggling to buy homes amid rising costs
There has never been a worse month for pending home sales than September 2026.
Data released Tuesday shows the housing market weakening sharply, squeezed by rising mortgage rates and elevated home prices.
Pending home sales fell 7.3% in September from the previous month, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). It was the lowest reading in the history of the Pending Home Sales Index, which began in 2001.
Mortgage rates have also moved higher. Mortgage News Daily put the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate at 7.43% on Monday, up from 7.37% on Friday.
The spike in mortgage rates over the past eight weeks -- and the even bigger increase since the start of the Iran war -- has priced out millions of aspiring homebuyers.
When rates increase from 6% to 7%, nearly 6 million fewer Americans can afford the monthly payment on the median-priced home in the U.S. with a 10% down payment, according to data provided to ABC News by NAR. The median single-family home was around $435,000 as of September 2026.
A separate estimate out Wednesday from Pantheon Macroeconomics found the typical monthly payment on the median-priced home will climb to 40% of average after-tax income this month, up from 35% at the start of the year.
In other words: to buy a typical single-family home in the U.S. right now, at around a $435,000 list price, your monthly mortgage will cost you 40% of your take-home pay.
"Affordability is too stretched, despite the near-stagnation in home prices for the last three years, for the rise in mortgage rates to leave no mark," said Pantheon Chief U.S. Economist Samuel Tombs in a research note.
Economists say many families -- especially first-time buyers -- are waiting on the sidelines to buy, while other families who locked in low mortgage rates are reluctant to move. The latest ABC News-Washington Post-Ipsos poll found half of adults say their mortgage or rent is unaffordable.
The West posted the largest drop in pending home sales, followed by the South, Midwest and Northeast. NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun attributed the decline to rapidly rising mortgage rates and said higher energy prices are adding to uncertainty.
A separate report released this morning by the Commerce Department's Census Bureau showed homebuilding also slowing sharply. Housing starts -- a measure of how many new homes builders begin constructing -- fell 5.2% in September from August and 7.4% from a year earlier, to an annualized rate of 1.221 million units.
