Velocitydrift

A new Intel survey of 3,000 working U.S. adults shows how consumer attitudes about homebuying may boost the spring and summer market — though a full recovery may take longer.

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More potential homebuyers in January said they’re likely to enter the housing market in 2026, but a robust recovery may have to wait until a future year, new survey data suggests.

The latest Inman-Dig Insights consumer survey results indicate there’s been a slight year-over-year increase in the share of working U.S. adults who, thanks to improved perceptions of affordability, say they’re likely to buy a home in the next year.

But that’s only part of the picture.

An Intel review of the new data reveals that another, even larger group of U.S. adults who were previously on the fence about entering the market have closed that door. And they’re poised to keep it closed even if rates fall considerably more than they already have.

These results may signal positive trends in transaction volume this year, if expectations hold up in the busy seasons of spring and summer.

But it may not be enough to dig the brokerage industry out of this depressed transaction environment.

Read the full results in this week’s Intel report.

A growing divide

Compared to this time last year, consumers have a generally more positive outlook on homebuying overall, the results suggest.

Nearly half — 45 percent — of U.S. adults surveyed in January said it’s a good time to buy a home. That’s up from 40 percent who expressed the same sentiment a year earlier, and from a low of 30 percent in April.

This improved outlook appears to be partly fueled by a perception that home price growth is slowing.

But it also reflects evolving attitudes toward mortgage rates, which have come down in recent months from their peak levels but remain roughly twice as high as they were a few years ago.

Those who said “it’s a good time to sell a home” were likelier than ever to cite the idea that consumers were “getting used to higher mortgage rates” as a reason why. Thirty-two percent of that group named this reason in January, up from 24 percent last year.
Of those who believe it’s a good time to buy a home, 39 percent said that mortgage rates are still favorable historically, compared to 34 percent who said the same last year.

Some homeowners in the survey indicated they now feel less rate-locked than they did a year ago.

61 percent of mortgage-holding homeowners who described themselves as “very likely” to buy a home in the next year had a sub-5-percent rate on their current loan.
That’s up from 51 percent of “very likely to buy” mortgage holders last year, driven by particularly strong movement for homeowners with a rate between 4 percent and 5 percent.

But as these homeowners have increasingly adjusted to the higher rate environment since 2022, others have become less responsive to more recent rate relief.

This time last year, nearly 8 percent of working U.S. adults said that if mortgage rates dropped to 5.5 percent, they would seriously consider entering the market for a home.
That share of fence-sitters had dwindled to fewer than 5 percent of adults by January.

But this wasn’t a broad-based shift toward homebuying, nor was it a wholesale shift away from the housing market.

Instead, some consumers who were sitting on the fence a year ago have taken different sides in response to the same market — with some convinced it’s time to look for a home in the next 12 months, and others newly convinced that now’s not the right time.

And no realistic shift in mortgage rates will persuade some of them.

25 percent of all survey respondents in January said that they were unlikely to buy and that no mortgage rate could persuade them otherwise. That share has ticked up steadily from 23 percent the year before.
An additional 24 percent of adults said that rates would need to fall below 4 percent — in some cases, well below — for them to consider a home purchase.

Taken together, these results suggest that the 2026 spring and summer housing market may be poised to continue its trajectory of gradual improvement, even as a more robust recovery remains elusive.

About the Inman-Dig Insights Consumer Survey

The Inman-Dig Insights consumer survey was conducted from Jan. 7-8 to gauge the opinions and behaviors of Americans related to homebuying.

The survey sampled a diverse group of 3,000 American adults, who ranged in age from 24 to 65 and were employed either full-time or part-time. The participants were selected to produce a broadly representative breakdown by gender and region.

Statistical rigor was maintained throughout the study, and the results should be largely representative of attitudes held by U.S. adults with full- or part-time jobs. Both Inman and Dig Insights are majority-owned by Toronto-based Beringer Capital.

Email Daniel Houston

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