The article argues that 3% pandemic mortgages created a lock-in trap. With over half of loans below 4%, moving at roughly 6% rates raises payments sharply, so homeowners stay even when life changes. FHFA estimates each 1-point rate gap cuts selling odds by 18%, helping explain why existing home sales are at mid-1990s lows and inventory stays thin, keeping prices high and first-time buyers squeezed, while owners are paper rich but mobility poor.

It adds that bond-market volatility has pushed rates up again, widening the gap and delaying mobility. The market likely stays frozen until rates fall near 5%, which most forecasters do not expect in 2026 or 2027. Assumable or portable mortgages could reduce the moving penalty, but they complicate securitization, so adjustment will be slow, driven by new construction and forced life events.

On Saturday, my phone didn’t just buzz… it practically tried to achieve orbit!

I had actually managed to fall asleep like a responsible adult who swears they’re “cutting back on news,” and then woke up to an avalanche of alerts about a major geopolitical rupture in Venezuela. You know, the kind of headlines that makes you blink twice and think, “oh, geeze… not again! Not another one!” Somewhere in my brain, the Chris Farley meme was already putting on its awful, brown tie and reporting for duty: “Getting pretty tired of living through historical events.”

That joke may be doing an irresponsible amount of emotional labor right now. And for that, I apologize.