> Mortgages are not assumable. Nor are they portable. And they're locked in for 30 years. I don't know of any other country that has this combination of factors

> Mortgages are not assumable. Nor are they portable. And they're locked in for 30 years. I don't know of any other country that has this combination of factors. That just leaves people feeling trapped and unable to move whenever rates go up. It's true that people with a 3% mortgage do not want to move now if they don't absolutely have to and this is impacting supply. however... > This is a policy decision that Congress and the President actively make to not free up mortgages and make them all assumable and portable. I don't think they have the power to do this (and I'm not sure I want them to have that kind of power). You want the President and/or congress to tear up all existing mortgage agreements? That's a massive amount of power you want to hand over to the government.Maybe they could mandate that mortgages going forward be assumable with some legislation, but it would take a while for that to have an effect. > I don't know of any other country that has this combination of factors. As I understand it, in a lot of other countries (like the UK) mortgages are essentially ARMs - the rates adjust with prevailing interest rates.