Housing: Older home buyers dominate the market amid higher mortgage rates

Yahoo Finance's Brad Smith breaks down charts showing how higher mortgage rates have impacted the housing market as well as the median age of home buyers.

Video Transcript

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BRAD SMITH: Welcome back, everyone. Time for today's Charts of the Day. We're taking a look at the wreckage higher rates have caused for the housing market.

The Fed's seven hikes this year have substantially impacted both mortgage applications, originations, and financing, and refinancing. We have seen a gradual uptrend in the latter since the boom of 2003. In 2020 and 2021, low rates kept the party going.

But that's all changed. This chart from the New York Fed telling us those who could benefit the most from refinancing, well, they've already done so. And "The Washington Post" putting it all into context with this chart. Older homebuyers dominated the housing market this year with the median age coming in at 53. So much for millennials getting on the housing ladder.