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Not necessarily. If more people are buying with cash, you can have both rising prices and people unable to get mortgages. And many, many more people are buying with cash. Either because they are older and have assets in hand, or because they are using OPM to invest in housing, or because they are just wealthier. Cash offers have become very common around here, to the point where even people who are using a mortgage can't put a mortgage contingency in the offer if they want to get the house.
Mortgages are a tool to allow people to afford a home without saving for decades. If they aren't available at a competitive price point, then people can't afford a home unless they save for decades first. This is generally considered Not Good for the economy for a variety of reasons, and certainly precludes widespread homeownership for young people.
You seem to assume that only one thing can be wrong at a time, but this is America in 2025, everything can be wrong at the same time.
Nope, share of purchases that are for cash has been largely the same for 20 years.
https://www.redfin.com/news/all-cash-home-purchases-2021/
That has a graph up to 2021, and in 2025 it continues to hover around 30%.
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You could, but that wouldn't stop developers from building. Unless cash buyers are somehow only interested in existing homes.
I don't think it's actually possible for unavailability of mortgages to dissuade developers AND for home prices to be rising precipitously.
It is theoretically possible for mortgages to be unavailable and for cash buyers to still drive up prices, though I think this article utterly fails to demonstrate that. But the price signal should work regardless of the source of the money. What's happened is the supply has become less elastic.
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