18% Mortgage Rates?! Home Prices & Rates Through the Years 🏡
Have you ever looked at old home prices and thought…
“I should’ve bought a house back then!” 🤔
There’s just one thing we sometimes forget: home prices were lower, but interest rates could be much higher.
In the early 1980s, the average U.S. home sales price was under $100,000.
Average Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States
But at the same time…
30-year mortgage rates reached around 18%. 😳
30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Average in the United States
Why does this matter?
The price of a home is only one part of the cost of buying it.
Your purchase price, interest rate, and down payment
all help determine how much you're financing and what your monthly mortgage payment may look like.
That’s also why a lower-priced home from decades ago doesn’t tell the whole story without looking at the mortgage rates buyers were paying at the time.
And if we could go back and pick the perfect year with low prices AND low rates...
I’d happily take the time machine 😌
Want to see how the numbers work together?
Use my Monthly Payment Calculator to compare different home prices, down payments, and interest rates.
Until the next one,
Claudia
Charts show U.S. national data from FRED. Local home prices and individual mortgage rates vary.
