Early Signs the Housing Market Is Waking Up

Homeownership and home sales serve as key indicators of the US economy and financial trends. They have a significant influence on the self-storage industry. The data shows that 35% of home buyers and sellers rent self-storage.

Hitting a 30-year low in home sales, as we did in 2024, is far from ideal for the health of the US economy or self-storage owners.

However, we are beginning to see the first signs of green shoots. Since interest rates started increasing in 2022, the mortgage rate lock-in effect has had a major impact on home buyers and sellers. Many homeowners with low, pandemic-era interest rates on their current mortgages find themselves unable to move, even if they need or want to, as the rates on new homes could be double those of their existing loans. 

Here are three recent data points that point in a positive direction.

US Mortgage Slide to their lowest level since 2022
It been 3 ½ years since mortgage rates were near the 6.0% range, but it's happening now. Why should we be optimistic that the decline will continue?

Fed Bond Buying is Forcing Interest Rates Down
Also known as Quantitative Easing (QE), the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 brought us five years of QE. Today’s QE, at $200 billion, is a far cry from QE1’s $1.725 trillion, QE2’s $600 billion, and QE3’s $1.6 trillion. However, it seems to be effective even on a smaller scale, and I suspect that as we approach the fall midterm elections, there will be increased political pressure to purchase more bonds to keep rates declining.

There Are Now More Homeowners With A Mortgage Rate Above 6% Than Those Below 3%
Gradually, US home buyers are adapting to a market with higher mortgage rates. The challenge for buyers has been the combination of elevated rates and an unsustainable rise in home sale prices. Home price appreciation in 2025 was just 0.4%. While many Americans still have mortgage rates below 3%, this figure has dropped from approximately 24% to 20% of all mortgage holders. Major life events like relocation, death, divorce, and births that trigger a need to make a home change don't stop just because high rates make home buying or selling uncomfortable.

There is a long way to go in order to get back to what would feel like a normal buyer and seller market, but these are some of the first tail winds the sector has had in 4 years.