Despite another chaotic start to spring, U.S. consumers may be signaling a greater appetite for homes in the year to come.
The pool of people open to buying a home over the next year took a hit between January and April after the war in Iran sent gas prices skyward and pushed mortgage rates higher, the latest results of the Inman-Dig Insights survey show.
But this event has been far less disruptive, and may be resolving more quickly, than the uncertainty over tariffs that roiled markets and dented housing demand the previous spring, the survey suggests.
And over time, new signs are emerging that homeowners may be adjusting to today’s mortgage rate levels — and are less resistant to the idea of testing the market.
Intel examines how potential clients are thinking about the housing market in this week’s report.
Competing considerations
With higher mortgage rates and upward pressure on gas prices hanging over consumers’ heads, it’s not surprising that some of them have reconsidered whether it’s wise to buy a home this year.
- The share of employed U.S. adults who expressed openness to buying a home in the year ahead dipped from 42 percent at the start of the year to 37 percent in April.
- Still, that share this April was 5 percentage points higher than it was in April of 2025, when uncertainty surrounding a set of sweeping new U.S. tariffs sent markets tumbling and led some buyers to sit out of the spring housing market.
Notably, the recent rate shock from the war in Iran has not led to an increase in consumers who firmly intend not to buy.
- Only 24 percent of employed U.S. adults said that they were completely closed to buying a home this year no matter how far mortgage rates might fall, down from 25 percent in January and 27 percent this time last year.
Instead, since the conflict began, consumers have shifted more to a wait-and-see camp.
- The share of adults who said they would only buy a home if mortgage rates fell to 5 percent or lower grew to 35 percent in April from 29 percent three months earlier.
Rates below 5 percent aren’t likely to materialize any time soon. But the fact that so many consumers are hypothetically open to these types of opportunities, instead of closed to the housing market altogether, suggests flexibility if conditions were to improve.
There are other signs that consumers are becoming generally less sensitive to mortgage rate movement.
- Of the active homeshoppers in April who said that they had previously felt held back from entering the market, a growing share said that they overcame a discomfort with today’s mortgage rates because they figured that they could refinance in the future.
- Last July, such once-reluctant home shoppers were likelier to name reasons related to the ongoing market rebalancing — more listings to choose from, reduced bidding wars, or their own home’s value potentially dropping — to explain why they finally hit the market.
A growing share of consumers in April were under the impression that people are adjusting to today’s higher-rate environment.
- Of the consumers in April who said now is a good time to list a home for sale, 32 percent agreed with the idea that consumers were getting used to today’s rates.
- That’s up from 24 percent in April of 2025.
In the wake of the war and its effects on global energy markets, even fewer people in April say that now is a good time to buy a home than said the same in January. But despite this sudden reduction, general sentiment about homebuying is more positive than it was in the spring of 2025.
- 36 percent of working U.S. adults surveyed in April said that it was a good time to buy a home — down from 45 percent in January.
- But in April of last year, that same share was as low as 30 percent.
Taken together, the data paints a picture of potential homebuyers who are once again wary of an uncertain economic environment for a second consecutive spring.
But their interest in the market may well result in more transactions for real estate agents than they saw in the spring and summer of last year.
About the Inman-Dig Insights Consumer Survey
The Inman-Dig Insights consumer survey was conducted from April 10-11 to gauge the opinions and behaviors of Americans related to homebuying.
The survey sampled a diverse group of 3,000 American adults, who ranged in age from 24 to 65 and were employed either full-time or part-time. The participants were selected to produce a broadly representative breakdown by gender and region.
Statistical rigor was maintained throughout the study, and the results should be largely representative of attitudes held by U.S. adults with full- or part-time jobs. Both Inman and Dig Insights are majority-owned by Toronto-based Beringer Capital.
