Some homeowners have been waiting years for mortgage relief. It keeps slipping away

By Samantha Delouya, CNN

(CNN) — When Patrice De La Ossa’s son was accepted to her alma mater, the University of Arizona, she wanted to give him something she hadn’t had herself: a college degree without student loans. So, she sold her home in Phoenix and moved to Tucson with him, closer to campus, to save on his room and board.

The move meant giving up a 2.25% mortgage for a 6.8% loan. But De La Ossa figured it was temporary. Rates would fall soon enough, she thought, and she could refinance into a monthly payment closer to what she had before.

More than four years later, her son has graduated. De La Ossa is still paying 6.8%.

She’s not alone. In the early years of the pandemic, mortgage rates fell below 3% and many homeowners refinanced their loans to lower their monthly payments. But late last year, for the first time since the pandemic, more homeowners have a mortgage rate above 6% than one below 3%, according to a Redfin analysis of FHFA data.

The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate, the most popular type of home loan in the US, has largely hovered above 6% for four years – even above 7% at times. Homebuyers who took out mortgages during that stretch may have expected rates to fall enough by now to refinance into cheaper loans. Instead, the relief they were counting on has remained out of reach.

De La Ossa, who works for an education company, pays nearly $900 more per month for this mortgage than she did for her Phoenix home, even though the two loans are almost identical.

The difference between a 3% mortgage rate and a 6% mortgage rate equates to hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest payments over the life of a mortgage loan – in addition to the principal amount borrowed.

She is frustrated by how much of her monthly payment goes toward interest, especially as she continues to pay off her PhD student loans. If mortgage rates don’t fall enough for her to refinance soon, De La Ossa said she may have to consider moving.

“That’s $900 every month I’m not putting away toward my son one day having a home, I’m not even able to take a vacation anymore. Now I work a second job just so I can make it. And that company is making $900 more in interest,” she said of her mortgage brokerage.

There was a brief window of hope this year. Mortgage rates, which tend to track the 10-year Treasury yield, drifted lower as inflation appeared to be moving back toward the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. For homeowners waiting to refinance, it looked like the break they had been waiting for.

Then the US and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran, and rates reversed course.

On Thursday, the average 30-year mortgage rate reached 6.71%, a new high for the year, according to Freddie Mac. CNN spoke with a half-dozen homeowners hoping to refinance. Nearly all shared the same frustration: With recent rate moves, they feared their refinancing plans could be delayed by years.

‘Date the rate’?

Many financial advisers say refinancing a home loan is worth the cost if you can lower your interest rate by at least one percentage point.

It doesn’t make sense for most mortgage holders to refinance at current rates unless they are in very specific situations, such as needing to consolidate credit card debt or fund a home renovation, said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin.

Refinancing applications have remained low in the years that mortgage rates climbed back above 6%, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

At first, David Belmonte, an entrepreneur who owns a masonry business in East Moriches, New York, thought he had a good handle on his mortgage. The rate was a steep 7.2%, and the monthly payment was about $6,000 – but he figured it wouldn’t be forever.

When he bought the house three years ago, his mortgage broker had given him a piece of advice that was common among housing professionals at the time: “Date the rate, marry the home.”

The idea was simple: A home is a long-term commitment, but the mortgage rate you start with doesn’t have to be. If rates fall, homeowners could refinance. Now, the phrase feels outdated.

“It’s not that way anymore,” Mary Lee Blaylock, president of Coldwell Banker Affiliates, told CNN. Buyers should go in to a home purchase expecting to live with the mortgage rate they get, she said.

For Belmonte, that rate has become even harder to stomach as his business has been battered by uncertainty surrounding immigration crackdowns. Three of his six employees have stopped working for him, including one who was briefly arrested by immigration officials. Belmonte said that while the employees had legal papers, they feared additional immigration sweeps.

With half his workforce gone, he said jobs take longer to complete. His income has become less predictable.

“It slows projects down, it bogs down the calendar,” Belmonte said. “Less work, less money.”

He had counted on being able to refinance once mortgage rates came down. Instead, he has found himself struggling to make the payments on the loan he already has.

“I really thought rates would come down, at least that was the plan. Now I feel stuck and I got such a high rate,” he said. “Even if it went down to 5%, I would be saving so much money.”

Moving isn’t a realistic escape. He needs enough room for his wife, his daughter and her three children, who all live with him.

At 59, he said he often jokes that he may be able to retire at 97.

“We barely go out anymore. We try not to drive if we don’t have to with high gas prices. We’re doing what we can, but it stinks,” he said. “I used to make a good living.”

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.