Who would buy a home at today's mortgage rates?

Who wants to buy a home when mortgage rates are above 7%? The answer, unsurprisingly, is not many people.

The housing consulting firm John Burns Research & Consulting surveyed homeowners and renters about the highest rate they would accept on a mortgage. Just 6% said they would be willing to pay 7.5% to 7.99%, around today's current levels.

But if rates fell below 5.5%, nearly half of those surveyed would be willing to take out a mortgage. That level is something of a "magic mortgage rate" that market watchers believe would unleash a surge of new demand and bring sales out of their low-gear state. While rates never hit 5.5% this year, mortgage applications did pick up noticeably when rates were hovering around 6% earlier this year. And the latest rate rise has had a strong chilling effect on the market. Zillow found that pending home sales, which are recorded when a home goes under contract, were down 8.5% in September compared to a year earlier.

Claire Boston is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance covering housing, mortgages, and home insurance.