What If You Could Take Your Mortgage Rate With You?

If you bought or refinanced a home a few years ago and are sitting on a 3% mortgage rate, I’m willing to bet you’ve said some version of this:

“I’d love to move, but I’m never giving up this interest rate.”

As a local Realtor, I hear it all the time.

It’s one of the biggest challenges facing today’s real estate market. Homeowners have built equity and may want to downsize, move up, relocate or simply find a home that better fits their lives—but trading a historically low mortgage rate for today’s higher rate can make moving difficult to justify.

A newly introduced bill in Congress could potentially change that.

The Making Ownership Viable for Everyone (MOVE) Act, introduced in August, proposes making portable mortgages more accessible. The concept is fairly simple: qualifying homeowners could potentially transfer the interest rate, remaining balance and term of their existing mortgage to their next home. The legislation would require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to begin purchasing portable mortgages.

Think about what that could mean.

Instead of your mortgage being permanently attached to your house, certain mortgage terms could essentially MOVE with you.

For a market like Gig Harbor, that could be significant. We have homeowners who purchased years ago, have substantial equity and would otherwise be natural sellers—but their mortgage rate has become the golden handcuff keeping them in place.

More mobility could mean more homes coming to market, more choices for buyers and a healthier flow of inventory throughout our community.

Of course, there’s an important word here: could.

The MOVE Act is proposed legislation, not current law. There are also plenty of details that would need to be worked out before portable mortgages became a practical reality. If you purchased a more expensive home, for example, additional financing would likely still be necessary.

But I love that we’re talking about creative solutions to one of today’s biggest housing challenges.

Real estate has never been one-size-fits-all. Families grow. Kids leave. Jobs change. People retire. Life moves—and ideally, our housing and financing options should allow us to move with it.

I’ll certainly be watching this one closely.

Looking forward to seeing you around the Harbor!

Jennifer Hawkins
Local Realtor | Gig Harbor, Washington