No, higher rates do not lock you out permanently, and the trap in the question is assuming everyone shares your financial position. Plenty of people keep buying homes even when rates are elevated, the same way sales continued, in smaller numbers, through past downturns. When rates are high, fewer people transact. When rates ease, affordability improves and buyers come back. Nobody can promise where rates go from here, and it is fair to say the pandemic-era ultra-low rates are unlikely to return, so do not build your plan around them. What you can act on is straightforward: your credit, your down payment savings, and your stable income. Those are the levers that actually change your affordability, and they keep working in your favor while you wait out the rate environment. The other piece is geography. Most of the country is priced nothing like Beverly Hills or coastal Southern California, and there are many places where owning a home is very achievable. Staying in an expensive market instead of owning somewhere more affordable is a completely legitimate choice, but it is a choice, and worth making with open eyes. If you want to see where you actually stand, that is exactly what the free Roadmap conversation is for: about 20 minutes where we run your real numbers.