Goldman Sachs Forecast Points to Lower U.S. Home Sales in 2027

Goldman Sachs projects roughly 3.9 million sales of existing U.S. homes in 2027. The share of younger millennial buyers purchasing a first home has fallen.

The forecast compares with 5.34 million existing-home sales in 2019. Higher mortgage rates may discourage owners with cheaper fixed-rate loans from selling, while people entering the market face current borrowing costs.

The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 7.40% Thursday, Oct. 15. A measure of the gap between existing fixed-rate mortgages and comparable market rates averaged 2.54 percentage points in the second quarter of 2024. That difference gives some owners an incentive to keep a lower-rate loan rather than take on a new mortgage when they move.

September's seasonally adjusted pace of existing-home sales was an annualized 3.99 million, a 2.2% decline from a year earlier. The median sale price rose 1.3% from a year earlier to $417,500, showing that the slower sales pace coincided with higher prices.

A survey covering primary-home purchases from July 2024 through June 2025 found that first-time buyers made up 60% of younger millennial buyers, down from 71% in the previous survey. The share was 33% among older millennial buyers. These figures describe the buyers in each age group, not homeownership rates for all millennials.

First-time purchasers represented 31% of September's existing-home sales, compared with 30% a year earlier. That monthly transaction share and the survey’s July-to-June figures cover different periods and buyer measures, so they are not a direct comparison.

“The housing market remains sharply divided between homeowners with equity and first-time buyers trying to break in …,” said Jessica Lautz, deputy chief economist at the National Association of Realtors.