There's a mortgage rate most buyers won't cross. For years it was 5%. Then it crept toward 5.5%, and briefly, in the fall of 2025, it looked like 6% might finally be within reach. New survey data suggests buyers have since pulled back. The mental block is still there. It's just shifting.

ResiClub and TurboHome just released their Q2 2026 Housing Sentiment Survey, polling 430 adults across the country on home prices, mortgage rates, agent value, and their plans to buy or sell. It's one of the most detailed snapshots of how Americans are actually feeling about real estate right now. Here's what stood out.

47% of homeowners surveyed said they would accept a mortgage rate up to 6.0% on their next home purchase. That's actually a pullback from 52% who said the same thing in Q3 2025, when it briefly looked like rates might fall quickly. Buyers opened up, rates didn't cooperate, and tolerance has retreated. The lock-in mentality isn't broken. It's just bending.

That lock-in effect, where homeowners with 2-3% pandemic-era rates refuse to trade up to a 6-7% mortgage, has been one of the biggest anchors on inventory and transaction volume since 2022. When psychology starts to shift, even gradually, it means more listings and more buyers entering the conversation at the same time.

A third of homeowners surveyed said a drop below 6% would make them somewhat or much more likely to buy, which tells us there’s a ton of pent-up demand from buyers waiting to pull the trigger.

Mortgage rates have been pretty volatile ever since the Iran War started. Home prices, on the other hand have stabilized a bit more. In Q3 2025, 55% of homeowners expected prices in their local market to stay flat or decline over the next twelve months. By Q2 2026, that number has eased to 44%. The outright bearishness of last fall is fading, but nobody is expecting prices to rip higher either without changes in current mortgage rates.

Only 14% of respondents now expect prices to drop by 4% or more. The crash predictions that flooded financial social media throughout 2024 and 2025 are not matching what the data actually shows.

One regional note worth paying attention to is that sentiment was weakest in the Southwest and West, where the highest share of respondents expected flat or declining prices. Utah falls in that geographic bucket. But Utah's market has never been a clean copy of the broader Sun Belt story. Salt Lake and Utah Counties have held steadier than markets like Phoenix and Las Vegas that have seen deeper corrections since 2022. The regional average masks what's actually happening zip code to zip code here on the Wasatch Front.

Here’s the thing though… most buyers are waiting for rates to cross 6%. But the moment rates cross that line, a wave of those sidelined buyers will re-enter the market simultaneously. When that happens, competition goes up and seller motivation goes down.

Now I know what you’re thinking… you’ve probably heard realtors like me saying that ever since the pandemic. And you wouldn’t be wrong. But what I can tell from being in the market every day is that at the begining of the year, when rates ACTUALLY did fall under 6% for several weeks, it was the busiest market I had seen in years. In fact, a UCCU lender here in Utah County recently told me their first quarter broke all of previous COVID era records for new loan applications. That has changed since mortgage rates have spiked higher since the Iran War. So that’s all to say that there is a clear path to rates coming down, and once they do, we already know significant buyer demand will return because we were already seeing it earlier this year.

While sellers still have more reason to negotiate and the market is quieter, you may be in a stronger position than buying into a market where everyone else has also decided it's finally time to move.

If you want to run the real numbers on what a purchase actually looks like in the Utah market right now, reply to this email or give me a call. Let's work through it together.

The survey confirms something I see on the ground every week. Buyers are out there, and they are gradually adjusting to today's rate environment. The gap between where buyers are comfortable and where rates actually are is narrowing.

The sellers who are struggling are the ones priced for 2021. The sellers who are succeeding are the ones who priced honestly for today's market, presented well, and made it easy for a buyer to say yes. If your home is sitting, or you're thinking about listing and want a straight read on where you stand, that is exactly the conversation I specialize in.

Reply to this email or give me a call. I talk through this with Utah homeowners every week.

Here to serve,

P.S. Curious what your home is worth in today's market? Reply with your address and I'll put together a free, no-pressure market analysis just for you.