As mortgage rates soar over 7%, an unaffordable housing market is becoming even more expensive

An already miserably unaffordable housing market is getting more expensive.

As mortgage rates top 7% — the highest they’ve been in 21 years according to Freddie Mac — home buyers face ballooning costs. Some housing experts are warning that rates could keep climbing toward 8%.

What does this mean for house hunters? Even ever-optimistic real estate pros say buyers and sellers must adjust their expectations.

“I don’t like to be ‘doom and gloom,’ this is my book of business,” said Bess Freedman, CEO of Brown Harris Stevens, a national real estate firm. “I still say real estate is the best long-term investment. But there has been a shift. It is flawed for people to assume that just because inflation has started to move in the right direction, that mortgage rates will go down, too.”