When rates on 30 year fixed rate mortgages go back above 6 percent, the housing market will be crushed.
While an increase in mortgage rates certainly wouldn’t help matters, in my area (northeastern NJ/NYC metro) mortgage rates of 1% wouldn’t help sell homes nobody wants. The property tax burdens, coupled with a horrible job market, prevent any Americans (except public employees) from gambling on buying a home. Childless workers following jobs around like Okies in “The Grapes of Wrath” have no use for 30 year commitments to a bank and municipality.