They’re Lucky Enough to Have a 3% Mortgage—and Feel Like They Can Never Move

This is like an episode of the Twilight Zone.

They’re Lucky Enough to Have a 3% Mortgage—and Feel Like They Can Never Move

One is cruising in a Porsche through his neighborhood while another has become a discontented landlord

By Rebecca Picciotto, WSJ

Nov. 15, 2026

One in five mortgage holders in the U.S. have secured historically low mortgage rates of 3% or lower

High mortgage rates have crushed homeowners’ budgets and frozen the U.S. housing market. Some lucky Americans haven’t felt any of it.

Millions of homeowners secured historically low mortgage rates during the pandemic, either with a new home purchase or by refinancing an existing mortgage. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate currently stands at 7.1%, more than double the pandemic-era lows of around 2.7%.

Homeowners with a 3% mortgage rate or lower look like anyone else. But there are tells: Some are buying luxury cars, booking expensive vacations and retiring early. They may keep silent, or slip out of the room when the topic of mortgage rates comes up in polite conversation.

Some feel lucky, others feel trapped in homes they can’t leave because they will never get a better deal. Meet the one in five mortgage holders who are America’s three percenters:

The Small-Town Porsche Driver: 2.82%

Andrew Radcliff: ‘Some people have stopped talking to us’

In a quiet suburb outside Kansas City, Andrew Radcliff is the guy with the Porsche, a 2023 Macan SUV. He has wanted one since he was 4 years old—and he finally has the mortgage rate to justify it.

“People comment on my car a lot. People comment on the activities that our kids do,” Radcliff said. “Some people have stopped talking to us.”

Radcliff’s neighbors are known for a Ned Flanders-level of politeness. It is a relatively well-off town where residents have built up their wealth in steady careers as nurses, skilled tradesworkers, police and firefighters. Still, Radcliff gets the occasional backhanded comment in the school pickup line: “It’s little things like ‘Well, I wish I could afford that.’”

Radcliff was laid off three times after a stint in the military and exhausted his savings just to keep his house. He bought the four-bedroom, three-bath house for $208,000 in 2015.

Today, he works for a pharma company. He refinanced his home loan at 2.82% in 2019. With three children and three dogs, Radcliff would like to upgrade to something bigger. But at today’s rates, his mortgage payments would more than double. Instead, he is renovating the home with new additions.

“I’m now in the top 1% of earners in my area,” he said. With that kind of income and a roughly $1,800 monthly mortgage payment, he said, “I can take my family on vacation.”

The Involuntary Landlord: 2.88%

Alex Taylor: ‘Do I like being a landlord? No, I hate it.’

Waiting for a call back about a potential water leak at the home she rents out in Lompoc, Calif., Alex Taylor was once again fed up. She became a landlord four years ago to hold on to her 2.88% mortgage rate.

“Do I like being a landlord? No, I hate it,” Taylor said. This mortgage rate is “like one of those sticky rat traps.”

Taylor secured that low rate after refinancing in 2016. Years later, her mother left her another home in a nicer neighborhood 80 miles away. She wanted to move there, but she couldn’t bear the idea of giving up her rate.

Taylor now rents out the Lompoc home at $2,600 a month, enough to pay for its own expenses. She has hired property managers to oversee it.

Despite the landlord headaches, Taylor still feels lucky—and sometimes guilty—for having two homes in today’s housing market. She sees it as a symptom of a broken, lottery-style housing market.

“Two people can live in identical houses,” she said. “And what makes the difference could be six months in when they bought.”

The Never-Renter: 2.74%

Laura Allison: ‘This is my first and last house.’

When friends her age complain about high rent costs and bad landlords, Laura Allison stays mostly quiet. It is hard for her to relate. She says she will never rent in her life.

The 30-year-old bought her three-bedroom home in Altoona, Pa., for $74,000, five years ago, the day before her 25th birthday, with a 2.74% mortgage rate. She pays $510 a month for her mortgage, home insurance and property taxes, well within her budget working in retail, where she makes around $40,000 a year.

“This is my first and last house,” Allison said.

These days, 20-something homeowners are more of a rarity. Allison went from living at home with her parents and two brothers to owning a place alone with her two cats. Most of her peers are stuck in rentals or living with their parents. Her brother has been househunting for months but can’t make the jump to homeownership at today’s rates.

“People feel stuck, I feel bad for them,” she said. “But I can’t just have everyone move in with me.”

The Zillow Dreamer: 2.75%

Kenneth Tang: “Anytime I do the math, I’m just like ‘Holy Crap.’”

Kenneth Tang now sets harder limits on the time he spends browsing homes on Zillow and Redfin. And he tries not to tour open houses anymore. He knows he can’t let go of his 2.75% mortgage rate anytime soon.

“Anytime I do the math, I’m just like ‘Holy Crap,’” said Tang. About 13% of his income currently goes toward housing costs—a big chunk of that is for his homeowners’ association. If he moved and more than doubled his rate, he might spend closer to a quarter of his income on housing. It would mean less to spend on some of his pricier hobbies like vintage cars.

The 39-year-old software engineer bought his townhouse in the greater Seattle area in 2015 after renting for years. It was a good starter home at 1,200 square feet with three bedrooms and a sizable two-car garage. But he never intended to stay there this long.

He intentionally got a shorter 15-year loan so that he could pay it off aggressively, move somewhere else and turn his current home into a rental. He spent hours scrolling through real-estate listings to try to find his next place. When rates started climbing, he reassessed.

“Anything I’d move into with a 6% or 7% interest is just a drastic difference. That’s what pulled me back,” said Tang, who now limits himself to “not more than 30 minutes a week” on real-estate sites.

The Early Retiree: 2.88%

Eric Miller: ‘At today’s rates, I would have to be back at my corporate job.’

The joke around Eric Miller’s town is that he must be a billionaire. At least, that’s what his neighbors say when they learn he has retired at 41 years old.

Toward the end of his 15-year run working at a commercial airlines supplier, Miller came up with a grand strategy to retire early. He had been acquiring rental properties as passive income and budgeting ferociously to save up a nest egg. What sealed the deal was refinancing his primary residence at 2.88%.

“At today’s rates, I would have to be back at my corporate job, reporting to the man and grinding it out for another 20 years,” Miller said.

Miller now lives with his dog and cat in a three-bedroom house with a home office on a river in the Chicago suburbs. He is still an avid saver and reviews his budget spreadsheet several times a day. But he has allowed himself the occasional splurge. He spent a total $40,000 on a dock addition to his house, along with a boat and a jet ski.

“I don’t want to come across as braggadocious,” he said. “I feel like I’m frozen in time in 2019 prices.”