The 30-year fixed mortgage rate averaged 6.58% in the week ending February 21, 2026, according to Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey — the lowest reading since January 2023 and a figure that has been enough to unfreeze a housing market that spent most of 2024 in near-paralysis. Existing home sales rose 6.4% in January 2026 compared to a year earlier, snapping a 26-month streak of year-over-year declines, according to the National Association of Realtors. NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun called it "the first clear evidence that the market is responding to rate relief" in his February 7 briefing.
The improvement is real but must be understood in context. Sales are still running approximately 23% below the pace of 2019 — not 2021, when the pandemic distorted the market beyond any useful comparison, but 2019, the last normal year. The core structural problem has not changed: homeowners who locked in 3% mortgages between 2020 and 2022 have little financial incentive to sell and give up that rate. That "lock-in effect" keeps existing inventory below pre-pandemic norms, which keeps prices elevated even as demand cools.
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