How to buy a home in a cooling market, according to top-ranked advisors

Becoming a homeowner can be challenging enough under good circumstances.

Add in higher mortgage rates, elevated home prices and unrelenting high inflation — i.e., the current home-buying environment — and it may feel decidedly unattainable.

The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has been trending above 7% for most of October, more than double the 3.3% heading into 2022, according to Mortgage News Daily. Meanwhile, the median list price for a home in the U.S. was $427,000 last month, 13.9% more than a year ago, Realtor.com’s latest monthly report shows.