I Gave Up a 2.6% Mortgage to Upgrade. Will I Regret It?

The mortgage lock-in effect ended in the Levin household shortly before my in-laws arrived from Mexico to celebrate my daughter’s birthday at our home in the Miami area. As usual, my wife and I had no place to put them, and they had to get a room at a Courtyard Marriott. Chatting in the kitchen, we fantasized about a bigger house where the whole family could gather for birthdays and holidays. As inopportune as the interest rate backdrop seemed, we knew that it was time to make the move that we’d been considering off and on for years to the more spacious and affordable South Florida suburbs.

Elsewhere in America, hundreds of thousands of families are having similar conversations. The lock-in effect has stopped many of them from selling their homes and moving — even when they really wanted or needed to — because of a reluctance to give up ultra-low mortgage rates.