Brokers working to reassure buyers who have reached their breaking point in the current mortgage market
A mortgage market turned upside down by tariffs and still suffering from inflation-caused affordability issues is leaving potential homebuyers angry and worn out. Brokers are seeing it firsthand and are working to combat buyer fatigue.
Some buyers are putting a pause on their home search completely. Mortgage applications dropped again this week, falling to their lowest levels since February. Interest rates remain high, with the Federal Reserve set to meet this week. But first, it is now in the crosshairs of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is threatening to investigate spending.
Bob Driscoll (pictured top), senior vice president and director of residential lending at Rockland Trust, said he’s seen the frustration and fatigue building with buyers, and continuing affordability challenges and market volatility aren’t making things better.
“You can see the homebuying experience is changing,” Driscoll told Mortgage Professional America. “It’s gone from this amazing process happening fast to now being earthly slow. What I’m hearing is more psychological and more emotionally driven - you can feel some of them dropping off, saying, ‘I’m done. I’m not going to do another preapproval’.
“It’s making the experience a bitter one, and you don’t want that.”
Driscoll has seen buyers go from renewing a preapproval once or twice to now multiple times, and buyers are still coming up empty when it comes to getting into the house they’re looking for.
“Before, maybe two preapprovals were the average,” Driscoll said. “Now we’re past six, maybe seven. So, let’s say they expire 120 days out. You’ve gone from buyers believing they were going to be a new home in six months, to being two years out and being no closer to finding a home.”
Getting the rug pulled out from under them
Driscoll explained the psychological damage customers suffer during the lengthy homebuying process.
“The minute you make the offer, you start putting furniture in the new home,” Driscoll said. “You start imagining the backyard barbecues you’re going to have. You start thinking about how amazing this is going to be. And then to have the rug pulled out from under them so many times, it starts to jade them into thinking, ‘I don’t know if this is ever going to happen. I’m not sure what to do.’”
The hardest part for industry veterans like Driscoll is that the unusual patterns in the market have made future forecasts far more difficult. The market has become volatile since the tariff implementation announcement a month ago.
“In real estate, it’s been volatile and somewhat illogical,” Driscoll said. “We’ve seen rates go from the lowest of lows to where they are now. At the same time, house prices have gone up. Normally, you see the inverse on the pricing side. With rates and prices working in parallel, it’s not normal.”
Driscoll believes the long period of low rates during the COVID-19 pandemic helped to keep the economy going then but may be holding up the housing market now.
“You just don’t have enough supply to counteract the increase in the rate,” Driscoll said. “Rates were kept down artificially for so long through COVID to make sure we could sustain the economy. Now you’re seeing the piper being paid, so to speak. Now people are sitting on 2.5%, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, and the only thing that’s going to unleash them from that is a life event.”
Some borrowers are stretching offers to get into the house of their dreams. But Driscoll warns customers to keep in mind the affordability challenges in day-to-day life, and to be careful about running up against debt-to-income (DTI) limits.
“Sustainability has to be part of the component,” Driscoll said. “When you own a home, it’s got to be sustainable. When you push the boundaries, that honeymoon can become a nightmare really quickly if you’re not prepared to handle it. We’re looking at consumer debt matching mortgage debt, and that’s not a normal debt exchange.”
Driscoll believes 2026 will be a big year
When dealing with frustrated, angry, and fatigued customers, Driscoll encourages his sales team to start with compassion.
“Something we’ve started talking about here is compassion,” Driscoll said. “You’ve got to understand what they’re going through. The second thing is you want to provide hope, so you want to have shared experiences.”
Sam Williamson, senior economist at First American, believes lifestyle reasons combined with surging housing equity will bring people into the market despite other factors.https://t.co/mjseaSDIZ0
— Mortgage Professional America Magazine (@MPAMagazineUS) April 30, 2025
Driscoll is considering having video conferences with preapproval customers to allow them to meet with recent homebuyers and hear about the challenges and eventual successes of the mortgage process.
“We want them to listen to people who went through the process,” Driscoll said. “Because there isn’t enough smiling going on in the process. You want to give them hope by showing them the people who went through the process. It might have taken them 16 months but look at them now. You will be there, and this will all be a distant memory.”
While the current mortgage market can be challenging, especially in big cities, Driscoll believes that better times are ahead, and is hopeful that 2026 will be a big year in mortgage lending.
“I always say to people that you’re going to wake up one day and it’s going to be slow,” Driscoll said. “You’re not going to see it right away, but there might be six houses available in the market you’re looking into. Then, one day, there will be 12 houses available. I’m looking for a little more logic in the market, because right now it is illogical.
“I think 2026 is going to be a big year. I think in mid-2025, you’ll start to see things starting to break the right way. I feel more bullish about 2026 in terms of housing than I did this time last year, looking ahead to 2025.”
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