Key Takeaways: Goldman Sachs Research forecasts just 3.9 million existing-home sales in 2027, modestly below its 4 million forecast for 2026 and 26% below 2019 levels, with home price growth slowing to 0.8%. The reason is lock-in: more than 95% of mortgage borrowers hold rates below today’s market rate, and 65% sit at least two percentage points below it. Even Goldman’s own rate relief, down to 6.4% in 2027, leaves affordability at historically poor levels.
If you are waiting for 2027 to rescue the housing market, Goldman Sachs has bad news. Its outlook, published October 30, says rising mortgage rates are likely to outweigh the longstanding housing shortage next year.
The result, economists Ronnie Walker and David Mericle write, is a drop in both the sales of existing homes and the construction of new ones. This is a forecast, not a fact about the future, but it is the clearest big-bank read on 2027 that investors have right now.
The Forecast: Fewer Sales, Slower Prices, Still-High Rates
The Goldman Sachs outlook puts numbers on a slow year. Walker and Mericle put it plainly: “In 2027, we expect the headwind from affordability to increasingly dominate, weighing further on activity.”
| Goldman Sachs reading | Figure |
|---|---|
| Existing-home sales, 2027 forecast | 3.9 million |
| Existing-home sales, 2026 forecast | 4 million |
| 2027 sales vs. 2019 | 26% below |
| Home price growth, 2027 forecast | +0.8% December over December |
| Home price growth, 2026 and 2025 | +1.1% and +1.2% |
| 30-year mortgage rate, October 22 | 7.32% |
| 30-year mortgage rate, 2027 expectation | 6.4%, still elevated |
| Single-family starts, 2027 vs. 2026 | 0.87 million, down from 0.90 million |
Goldman calls the price path “anemic,” and the sales path is weaker still. A 3.9 million pace would leave transactions more than a quarter below where they stood in 2019.
The starting point is already soft. Pending home sales fell 7.3% in September to a record low, and mortgage rates ended October at 7.24%, so 2027 begins from a frozen floor, not a normal market.
The Lock-In Trap, and Why Even the Optimistic Forecast Is a Freeze
Here is the insight most coverage buries. Goldman is the optimistic voice in the room on rates, and its optimistic case still produces fewer sales.
- The lock-in math: more than 95% of mortgage borrowers have rates below current market rates, and 65% have rates two percentage points below market rates. Moving means prepaying a cheap loan and taking a new one at a far higher rate.
- Where it came from: “The combination of mortgage borrowers refinancing at low rates en masse in 2020 and 2021 and the high current level of mortgage rates has created a significant financial cost to moving,” Walker and Mericle write.
- The relief that does not relieve: Goldman’s credit strategists expect mortgage rates to decline in 2027 but remain elevated at 6.4%. Even if that decline happens, Goldman says affordability will remain at historically poor levels.
- The other forecasters are colder: Fannie Mae’s October forecast holds the 30-year rate at 7.5% in every quarter of 2027, revised up from 6.7%, with existing-home sales at 4.06 million and price growth of 0.6%. The Mortgage Bankers Association expects rates above 7% throughout 2027, at about 7.1% by year-end.
Read those three forecasts together and the spread is the story. The 2027 rate outlook runs from 6.4% to 7.5%, yet every forecaster lands in the same place on activity: slow sales and price growth under 1%.
That also fits the price data investors already have. Home prices rose 1.7% in the year to September and are forecast to slow further, so a sub-1% 2027 is a continuation, not a shock.
What Beginner Investors Should Do With a Frozen 2027
- Stop underwriting a rebound. Plan deals that work at 3.9 million national sales and 0.8% price growth. If a deal only works when the market thaws, it does not work on the current forecasts.
- Underwrite the rate you can get, not the rate you hope for. The 2027 forecasts span 6.4% to 7.5%. Price your financing at the high end of that range and treat anything lower as a bonus, never as the plan.
- Do not count on appreciation. Goldman sees 0.8% price growth and Fannie Mae sees 0.6%. Cash flow and a sound purchase price have to carry the deal, because the market will not lift it for you.
- Shop for life events, not rate relief. With 95% of borrowers locked in below market rates, the sellers who do list are the ones who have to move. Those are the motivated sellers a slow market rewards.
- Watch new construction for openings. Goldman expects single-family starts to slip to 0.87 million in 2027. Where builders still build and need buyers, incentives matter more when sales are slow.
The bottom line is simple. Goldman Sachs expects 2027 to be slower than 2026, not better: 3.9 million sales, 0.8% price growth, and rates that stay high even in the good case. Investors who plan for the freeze, instead of waiting it out, are the ones positioned when it finally thaws.
Data: Goldman Sachs Research, The Outlook for US Housing in 2027 amid Rising Mortgage Rates, published October 30, 2026; Fannie Mae Economic and Strategic Research Group, October 2026 housing forecast; Mortgage Bankers Association, October 2026 forecast.
