72% of homebuyers have paused their search waiting for lower mortgage rates — and 41% already regret it

If you're waiting for mortgage rates to fall before buying a house, there's a decent chance the number you're watching is out of date, and you're not alone in this.

A poll commissioned by Neighbors Bank — a Columbia, Mo., lender specializing in loans for first-time buyers and others the mortgage market tends to pass — surveyed 1,000 potential buyers. Most buyers couldn't say where rates stood while they waited. Only 35% could place the average 30-year rate in the right range, and 45% overshot.

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So a lot of buyers right now are sitting out the market because of a number they're not tracking. And it's a number Fannie Mae, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) and other forecasters don't expect to see again for years yet .

In the meantime, 72% of the buyers surveyed have put their searches on hold, and millennials have logged the longest waits at 14 months.

Why forecasters say 5% isn't coming back soon

Freddie Mac's weekly survey had the 30-year fixed at 2.65% in January 2021, and by October 2023 it hit 7.79%. It initially slid to 5.98% towards late February of this year, then turned around to 6.49% as of July 9, and 6.66% as of Aug. 27 .

The forecasts don't bend much from there.

Fannie Mae's June housing forecast has the 30-year fixed averaging 6.4% through the rest of 2026, easing to 6.3% over 2027. The MBA's June Mortgage Finance Forecast , for its part, has it at 6.5% in the third and fourth quarters — and still at 6.5% through 2027. Analysts told U.S. News they see rates holding between 6% and 6.5% for the next three years, and the outlet reported that Fed officials' own June projections made a 2026 rate hike look likelier than a cut.

Still, 34% of the holdouts say they'd pull the trigger the day the rates hit their number.

Among buyers who have delayed, 41% already have regrets about it, saying they should have moved before rates or prices got worse. If they could rerun 2025, 17% say they'd have bought a house instead. Meanwhile, 40% say their regret goes back further, to the pandemic era, when the 30-year rate fell as low as 2.65% .