Higher Mortgage Rates Were Supposed to Cool Home Prices. How ‘Rate Lock-In Effect’ Got in the Way
Thursday, March 12th, 2026
When the Federal Reserve began aggressively raising interest rates in 2022, many analysts expected home prices to fall. But they didn’t. Instead, they soared. A new analysis from the Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) at Harvard University helps explain why—and the answer is summed up in mortgage rate locks. From the start of 2021…