Almost every week, someone tells me the same thing: they're waiting for interest rates to come back down before they buy. They remember 2021. They remember friends who locked in something with a 2 in front of it. And they've decided to sit tight until that happens again.
I understand the instinct. But I want to be honest with you, because that's the only way I know how to do this job: you may be waiting for something that isn't coming back — and the waiting itself is costing you far more than you realize.
A little history puts it in perspective
Freddie Mac has tracked mortgage rates since 1971. Over that entire span — more than fifty years — the 30-year fixed rate has averaged around 7.7%. That's the real long-term normal.
The all-time high came in October 1981, when the average 30-year rate hit 18.63%. People bought homes anyway. They had to live somewhere.
Then came 2020 and 2021. In response to the pandemic, the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark rate to nearly zero and poured money into keeping the economy stable. Mortgage rates fell below 3% for the first time in the history of the survey, bottoming at a record 2.65% in January 2021.
Here's the part most people don't stop to consider: that wasn't normal. It was the lowest rate ever recorded, produced by a once-in-a-century global emergency and an extraordinary government response designed to prevent economic collapse. It was a perfect storm — and perfect storms, by definition, don't come around often.
Waiting for 2.65% again is a little like waiting for another 1981. Both were extremes. Neither represents the world we actually live in most of the time. Today's rates, which feel painful compared to the pandemic, are actually much closer to the historical norm than those record lows ever were.
What that "perfect storm" actually did
While everyone remembers the low rates, far fewer people talk about what those rates did to the market itself — and this is the part that should change how you think about waiting.
I had a front-row seat to it. During those years I was COO of one of New England's fastest-growing brokerages, overseeing around 1,300 transactions a year. I didn't read about the frenzy in the headlines — I watched it move through hundreds of deals a month, in real time, from the top of the organization. And I can tell you plainly: it was chaos.
Those historically cheap mortgages flooded the market with buyers at the exact moment almost no one was selling and almost nothing was being built. That collision of massive demand and vanishing supply created a level of insanity I had never seen before and haven't seen since.
Homes would list on a Thursday and have twenty offers by Sunday. Bidding wars pushed sale prices tens of thousands — sometimes over a hundred thousand — above asking. To win, buyers started doing things that would make any seasoned agent wince. They waived inspections entirely, agreeing to buy homes without ever checking for defects, taking on whatever problems the walls were hiding. They waived appraisal contingencies, promising to cover the difference in cash when the home didn't appraise for the wildly inflated price they'd agreed to pay — because appraisals simply couldn't keep up with how fast prices were climbing. Escalation clauses, all-cash offers, personal letters begging sellers to pick them, closing timelines bent to whatever the seller wanted. Buyers were stripping away every protection the process is designed to give them, just for a chance to win.
It wasn't a healthy market. It was a feeding frenzy created by an emergency — and it sent prices through the roof, nowhere more so than here in New England.
Look at the numbers in Massachusetts. The median single-family home price rose more than 11% in 2020 alone — after years of gains that had run a modest 2% to 5%. Then it kept climbing. By the spring of 2022, the statewide median had jumped roughly 30% in just two years, from around $430,000 to $560,000. Some corners of the region saw even more staggering increases.
So yes, rates were low. But the "savings" from that low rate were quietly swallowed by home prices that were rising faster than most people had ever seen — often paid for by buyers who gave up their inspection, their appraisal protection, and their peace of mind to get there. The cheap money didn't make housing cheap. It made housing expensive, and it made the process reckless — and prices stayed high even after rates climbed back toward normal, because there still isn't enough supply to meet demand.
The cost of waiting
Here's the trap. People are waiting on the sidelines for a low rate that may never return — and while they wait, two things keep happening.
First, prices keep rising. There is still a severe shortage of homes for sale across Massachusetts, and scarcity keeps pushing prices up. Every month you wait, the home you want likely costs a little more.
Second, if you're renting while you wait, you're not standing still — you're falling behind. Rents in Massachusetts have climbed right alongside home prices. Every rent check builds equity, just not yours. It builds your landlord's. You're already paying a mortgage every month; the only question is whose.
Now imagine the thing everyone claims to be waiting for actually happens and rates drop meaningfully. What do you think that does? It unleashes every one of those sidelined buyers all at once, into the same market that still doesn't have enough homes. Demand surges, bidding wars return, and prices jump again — exactly like they did in 2021. The very event people are waiting for is the event most likely to price them out further. I've watched it happen once. I have no doubt it would happen again.
The honest takeaway
I'm not going to tell you it's always a perfect time to buy. It isn't, and anyone who says otherwise is selling something. The right time to buy is when it's right for your life, your finances, and your plans — not when a headline says so.
But I will tell you this: waiting for the pandemic's rates to return is a strategy built on something that isn't coming back. Rates move. They may well ease from where they are today. But the 2% and 3% world was a once-in-a-lifetime anomaly, and building your future around its return means potentially watching prices and rents climb past you while you wait for a ghost.
You can't control interest rates. You can refinance a rate later if they fall. What you can't do is go back and buy at yesterday's price. In real estate, the number you never get back isn't the rate — it's the price you could have locked in today.
That's the part I care about protecting. Because your equity is your wealth — and the sooner you start building it, the more of it is yours to keep.