A realtor gives neighbors a tour during an open house at a home in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, on Jan. 11, 2026.

Zak Bennett | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Spring is traditionally the busiest season for home sales, and while this year’s market dynamics have shifted strongly in favor of buyers, broader forces in the economy are creating significant challenges.

The most important factor in any season is mortgage rates. They were expected to be lower this year, as the Federal Reserve dropped its lending rate to counter inflation, but the war with Iran has turned that on its head. The cost of oil is shooting higher, leading to rising inflation and causing the Fed to reconsider.

Now U.S. bond yields are rising, with mortgage rates following suit.

The average rate on the popular 30-year-fixed mortgage had started this year lower, even briefly dipping below 6% at the end of February, but it rose sharply this week to 6.53% on Friday, the first day of spring, according to Mortgage News Daily. It is now just 18 basis points below where it was a year ago.

Higher rates will weigh on affordability, but other factors have flipped the market in favor of buyers. Homes are sitting on the market longer, sellers are increasingly willing to lower prices and the supply of homes for sale is rising, albeit not as quickly as it should be.

“As the housing market approaches the ‘best time to sell’ season, it sits in a precarious position, caught between long-term improvements and sudden short-term instability,” Jake Krimmel, senior economist at Realtor.com, wrote in a Weekly Housing Trends report. “Everything seems much more unsettled and uncertain than it did just a month ago.”

For the week ending on March 14, active inventory was up 5.6% year-over-year, according to Realtor.com, but new listings were down 1.4%.

This means the number of homes for sale is climbing not because there are so many more sellers, but because the homes on the market are sitting. That may be because potential sellers who expected to put their homes on the market are holding back due to concerns about the implications of the Iran war.

“I think inventory is the bigger decider,” said Jonathan Miller, director of markets for StreetMatrix, a housing market data provider. “The idea that rates are going to noticeably come down this year, I think, is generally off the table.”

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Location, location

Given the disparity in inventory across different markets, this spring is likely to be a tale of many cities.

For example, in February, active listings in Las Vegas, Seattle, Cincinnati and Washington, D.C., were all up over 20% from a year ago, according to Realtor.com. Listings in San Francisco, Chicago, Miami and Orlando, Florida, meanwhile, were lower than a year ago.

Home prices had been cooling off for much of the past year, and they continue to do so. Prices were just 0.7% higher in January than they were in January 2025, according to Cotality. That’s down from the 3.5% annual growth at the beginning of 2025. Higher mortgage rates, however, are taking away from that improved affordability.

The Northeast and Midwest are seeing the strongest price appreciation, led by New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, Wisconsin and Nebraska, due to tighter supply in those regions, according to Cotality.

Cotality ranks 69% of top metropolitan housing markets as overvalued, noting undervalued markets like Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco and Honolulu could see a rebound in prices in 2027.

“Ultimately, locations with consistent job growth will remain the primary engines for price appreciation, but they also have larger inventory deficits which are driving pressure on home prices,” Selma Hepp, Cotality’s chief economist, wrote in a recent report.

As for new construction, buyers are likely to see better deals this spring, as builders are struggling to unload an oversupply of homes. Inventories hit a 9.7-month supply in January, according to the U.S. Census, as the result of sales falling to the lowest level since 2022. A growing share of builders cut prices in March, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

“Affordability for buyers and builders remains a top concern,” Bill Owens, chairman of the NAHB, said in a release. “Many buyers remain on the fence waiting for lower interest rates and due to economic uncertainty. Builders are facing elevated land, labor and construction costs and nearly two-thirds continue to offer sales incentives in a bid to firm up the market.”

Construction of single-family homes also dropped in January. While some are blaming rough winter weather for the weakness in the new home market, builders are consistently battling affordability for both their customers and their own bottom lines. Costs for land, labor and materials have not eased.

“I think this is not going to be an inspiring year for the housing market. It started out with high expectations. I think the war, whatever the outcome, has really dampened enthusiasm and kept uncertainty really high,” StreetMatrix’s Miller said.

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In an aerial view, two-story single family homes line the streets of neighborhood on Jan. 13, 2026 in Thousand Oaks, California.

Kevin Carter | Getty Images

Mortgage rates surged to their highest level since September on Friday as bond yields moved higher due to the war in Iran.

The average rate on the 30-year fixed loan hit 6.41%, according to Mortgage News Daily. That is the highest rate since the first week of September, but still below the 6.78% notched at the same time last year.

Mortgage rates loosely follow the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury, which was up again Friday.

“This is counterintuitive for those who expect bonds to serve as a safe haven in times of uncertainty, but when war has a direct impact on inflation expectations, it’s more than enough to offset any of the safe haven benefit that might otherwise be seen,” wrote Matthew Graham, chief operating officer at Mortgage News Daily.

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Even as rates began rising last week, mortgage demand from homebuyers rose, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, but this week’s new surge could put a damper on the spring season, which is already plagued by other major headwinds.

Lennar, one of the nation’s largest homebuilders, reported disappointing first-quarter earnings. Its CEO, Stuart Miller, described headwinds for the broader market as including “high mortgage rates, constrained affordability, cautious consumer sentiment, and geopolitical uncertainty, especially now including the recent conflict in Iran.”

Just two weeks ago, rates had dropped to match a multiyear low, briefly touching 5.99%. Now, any savings from those lower rates is gone.

For someone buying a $400,000 home, around the national median, with 20% down on a 30-year fixed mortgage, the monthly payment is now about $115 more than it would have been two weeks ago.

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The Supreme Court during a rain storm in Washington, Feb. 20, 2026.

Annabelle Gordon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that President Donald Trump’s country-specific “reciprocal” tariffs are unconstitutional, delivering a win for many consumer companies facing higher import costs.

But the ruling doesn’t cover all sectors.

The Supreme Court reviewed tariffs enacted under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, or IEEPA, which the Trump administration used to justify the sweeping tariff agenda. The act had never before been used by a president to impose tariffs.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that IEEPA “does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.”

Still, hours after the ruling, Trump announced a new global 10% tariff, and the Supreme Court’s ruling does not cover tariffs enacted under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Those duties are intended to target specific products that threaten national security, and they remain in effect after Friday’s ruling.

Separate from his country-specific rates, Trump has raised tariffs on imports of steel, semiconductors, aluminum and other products deemed to impair national security.

Here are the sectors still facing higher levies even after the Supreme Court decision.

Autos

It’s not immediately clear how much the decision will impact the U.S. and global automotive industry. The industry continues to face billions of dollars in tariff costs, depending on where an imported auto part or vehicle originates.

The Trump administration last year broadly implemented 25% tariffs on vehicles and certain auto parts imported into the U.S., citing national security risks. It has since struck independent deals to lower the levies to 10% to 15% with countries such as the United Kingdom and Japan. Others, such as South Korea, have also struck deals for lower rates, but it’s unclear if those changes have actually taken effect.

“With today’s decision out and subsequent developments, there remain many unknowns and important questions still to be answered. This is not a moment to ease up,” said Lenny LaRocca, U.S. automotive lead for consulting firm KPMG. “Automakers should continue planning for multiple scenarios and keep supply chain considerations top of mind as the trade and tariff landscape continues to evolve.”

America’s largest automaker, General Motors, last month said it expects between $3 billion and $4 billion in tariff costs this year, and Ford Motor earlier this month said its net tariff impact is expected to be roughly flat year over year at $2 billion in 2026.

Ford told CNBC in a statement that it is continuing to work with the government on policies that “promote a strong and globally competitive U.S. auto sector.” GM did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Supreme Court decision.

Pharmaceuticals

The pharmaceutical industry is facing a lot of uncertainty over tariffs. Trump has repeatedly threatened tariffs on pharmaceutical imports, though they haven’t yet taken effect, in part because of negotiated multiyear deals between the administration and drugmakers.

If that were to change, however, pharmaceutical tariffs would still be covered under Section 232.

The administration has floated imposing tariffs on the industry that could eventually reach up to 250%. Last July, Trump threatened 200% tariffs on pharmaceuticals, and the administration has already opened a Section 232 investigation into pharmaceuticals to investigate the impact of imports on national security.

The tariff threats are a move to push drug companies to manufacture in the U.S. instead of abroad.

In December, multiple companies inked a deal with Trump to voluntarily lower their prices in exchange for a three-year exemption from any pharma tariffs — as long as they invest further in U.S. manufacturing. That deal included major players like Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, Novartis and more.

Furniture

The furniture industry found little relief from Friday’s Supreme Court ruling.

Last fall, items like couches, kitchen cabinets, vanities and more were hit with higher tariffs under Section 232. The roughly 25% duties will remain in place even now that the IEEPA tariffs have been deemed unconstitutional.

The furniture industry is already facing greater uncertainty, with the 25% tariff expected to rise to 50% in 2027, and more broad pressures from higher interest rates and inflation.

Smaller companies are getting hit the hardest, with fewer resources to work with, while larger companies are facing bankruptcy, like Value City Furniture’s parent company, American Signature Furniture, which went out of business late last year.

Food and consumer packaged goods

Under Section 232, steel and aluminum imports into the U.S. are still carry tariffs.

With higher aluminum tariffs, companies like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Keurig Dr Pepper and Reynolds will continue to face higher costs associated with manufacturing their products.

Trump hiked aluminum tariffs to 50% last year.

Still, some of the key tariffs for the sector have been rolled back, even before Friday’s ruling.

In November, Trump issued an executive order exempting several hundred agricultural products, including bananas, coffee and spices, from tariffs. And in September, he similarly rescinded a 10% tariff on Brazilian pulp, a key component of paper towels, diapers and toilet paper.

— CNBC’s Mike Wayland, Annika Kim Constantino, Gabrielle Fonrouge and Amelia Lucas contributed to this report.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, on the day he is sworn in as secretary of Health and Human Service in Washington, D.C., U.S., Feb. 13, 2025. 

Nathan Howard | Reuters

The nation’s new top health official could further erode already falling U.S. vaccination rates against once-common childhood diseases, a development that comes as a growing measles outbreak has led to the first U.S. death from the disease in a decade.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic, now leads the Department of Health and Human Services and wields enormous power over the federal agencies that regulate vaccines and set shot recommendations. 

Kennedy tried to distance himself from his previous views during his Senate confirmation hearings, claiming that he isn’t “anti-vaccine” and would not make it “difficult or discourage people from taking” routine shots for measles and polio. 

But some health policy experts said his early moves as HHS Secretary are concerning and suggest that he could undermine immunizations in other, less direct ways, which could increase the risk of children catching preventable diseases.

“The steps that he’s taken so far seem to be in line with his views of skepticism about vaccines and their safety, of wanting to allow for parents to not get their children vaccinated. It’s all things he’s championed,” said Josh Michaud, associate director of global health policy at KFF. “There might be more dominoes to fall coming.”

Kennedy has said he will review the childhood vaccination schedule, and is reportedly preparing to remove and replace members of external committees that advise the government on vaccine approvals and other key public health decisions, among other efforts. Some experts said he could also amplify data highlighting the risks of vaccines, promote unfounded claims about shots and undermine legal protections for vaccine makers. 

If rates drop even more, there could be major consequences, such as renewed outbreaks of vaccine-preventable illnesses in certain communities.

“Within the next couple of years, we could see major drops in childhood vaccination rates,” Lawrence Gostin, professor of public health law at Georgetown University, told CNBC. “He has all the powers he needs to sow public distrust in vaccines. He has a history of doing that and he has a desire to do it.”

“This could lead to significant outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases throughout America, with the disproportionate impact on red states that President Trump carried in the 2024 election,” Gostin added. 

Kennedy has a long track record of making misleading and false statements about the safety of shots. He has claimed they are linked to autism despite decades of studies that debunk that association. Kennedy is also the founder of the nonprofit Children’s Health Defense, the most well-funded anti-vaccine organization in the U.S. In a government ethics agreement in January, he said he stopped serving as chairman or chief legal counsel for the organization as of December.

But vaccines have saved the lives of more than 1.1 million children in the U.S. and saved Americans $540 billion in direct health-care costs over the last three decades, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention research released in August.

States and local jurisdictions set vaccine requirements for school children, but the federal government has a longstanding system for approving and recommending shots for the public. That includes creating the childhood vaccination schedule, which recommends when children should receive certain shots. It’s used by states, pediatricians and parents. 

The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Why have childhood vaccination rates fallen?

Childhood vaccinations and the state requirements in place for them have been “one of the greatest public health success stories” in the U.S., allowing the country to eliminate many diseases that people once feared, such as polio, according to William Moss, professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Rates stayed relatively steady for nearly a decade before the Covid pandemic, as about 95% of kindergarten children were up to date with all state required vaccines, Moss said. That includes separate shots for polio and varicella, a vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella – called MMR – as well as a jab that protects against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis.

But the share of kindergarten children who are up to date on their vaccinations has dipped since the pandemic, according to data collected and aggregated annually by the CDC from state and local immunization programs. Less than 93% of kindergarteners had received all state required vaccines in the 2023-2024 school year, data shows.

Exemptions from school vaccination requirements, particularly non-medical exemptions, have also increased, according to the CDC. The share of U.S. children claiming an exemption from one or more shots rose from 2.5% in the 2019-2020 school year to 3.3% in the 2023-2024 school year, the highest national exemption rate to date. Nearly all of that increase was driven by non-medical exemptions, such as religious or personal belief reasons.

That decrease appears consistent with the public’s perception of childhood immunizations. A Gallup survey released in August found only 40% of Americans said they considered childhood vaccines extremely important, down from 58% in 2019 and 64% in 2001. 

The overall decline is fueled in part by vaccine skepticism, a trend that “certainly existed far before the pandemic,” KFF’s Michaud said.

Vaccine hesitancy and the anti-vaccine movement have been around globally for decades. They are often intertwined with political, moral and spiritual ideas around the rights of an individual versus the community, the limits of government power over bodily autonomy, mistrust of medical institutions and misinformation about shot safety and efficacy. 

The politicization of the pandemic only fueled more doubts about vaccinations. 

It created a partisan divide on the public’s acceptance of the Covid vaccine, according to Sean O’Leary, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics committee on infectious diseases. Social media and public figures amplified misinformation about Covid jabs, and some of those “falsehoods about Covid shots spilled over to an extent to other types of vaccinations,” he said. 

“There was a very precipitous drop [in vaccination rates] right when the pandemic hit, in those first few months afterwards,” O’Leary said. “And we never really completely caught up.” 

O’Leary noted that the vast majority of parents on both sides of the political spectrum continue to vaccinate their kids. 

Still, surveys suggest that the partisan division on immunizations has deepened in recent years. In 2024, 63% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters said childhood vaccinations were “extremely important,” compared to just 26% of Republicans and GOP leaners, according to the August Gallup survey. 

Five years earlier, enthusiasm was just slightly higher among the Democratic group at 67%, and double among Republican respondents at 52%. 

There are “certainly political ideologies that are driving vaccine policy in certain areas of the country,” which has a “clear downstream impact on vaccination levels,” said Dr. Neil Maniar, a public health professor at Northeastern University. 

Over three-quarters of U.S. states, or 39, had vaccination rates for the MMR shot below the “Healthy People 2030” target rate of 95% during the 2023-2024 school year. That refers to the level needed to prevent community transmission of measles, a highly contagious and deadly virus. 

The data means that roughly 280,000 school children were unvaccinated and unprotected against measles during that school year, according to the CDC. MMR vaccination rates among kindergarteners vary across states, ranging from a low of around 80% in Idaho to a high of more than 98% in West Virginia. 

Moss noted that clusters of unvaccinated people within a specific community increase the risk of disease outbreak. 

“That’s where you’re going to get these larger outbreaks like we’re seeing in Texas right now with measles,” Moss said. 

A child who wasn’t vaccinated died in the outbreak in rural West Texas, state officials said in late February, the first U.S. death from the disease since 2015. The childhood vaccination rate for measles in Gaines County, the epicenter of the current outbreak in Texas, is just below 82%.

A second patient, an unvaccinated adult in New Mexico, tested positive for measles after death, state officials said Thursday.

Kennedy last week said shots protect communities from measles, but emphasized that the decision to vaccinate “is a personal one.” He also pushed unconventional treatment regimens for measles, including cod liver oil, which is rich in vitamin A. 

Kennedy could target vaccine advisory panels

Kennedy’s HHS already appears to be targeting a key part of U.S. vaccine policy: external advisors to the government health agencies that approve shots and set recommendations for them. 

The government postponed a meeting of vaccine advisors to the CDC and a separate meeting of advisors to the Food and Drug Administration, the latter of which is crucial to determining the flu strains in next season’s shots. It is unclear why the meetings were canceled or when they will be rescheduled.

FILE PHOTO: The headquarters of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is seen in Silver Spring, Maryland November 4, 2009. 

Jason Reed | Reuters

One “clear step” Kennedy can also take to undermine vaccinations is removing members of those advisory panels that shape the government’s shot recommendations, including which jabs are covered at no cost by different types of insurance, according to Georgetown’s Gostin. 

Several reports have said Kennedy plans to replace members whom he perceives to have “conflicts of interest,” though it is unclear how many people will be outed or when. 

Gostin called conflicts of interest one of Kennedy’s “code words” for “simply purging hard working, experienced scientists from advisory committees and replacing them with those that are more skeptical of shots.” All HHS agencies and their advisory panels have rigorous policies for conflicts of interest, and there have been no related issues for years, he noted. 

Kennedy’s shake-up of advisory committees could produce “bogus recommendations” that highlight the harms rather than the benefits of shots, according to Gostin. He said those recommendations could influence governors, legislatures and school boards in red states, which could adopt policies that reduce childhood immunizations and “create wide-open opt outs of shots.” 

Those recommendations could also create greater distrust in the CDC and Trump administration among scientists and public health experts, including Gostin himself, he said.

Sherry Andrews prepares a MMR vaccine at the City of Lubbock Heath Department in Lubbock, Texas, U.S. Feb. 27, 2025. 

Annie Rice | Reuters

“It will have a longer-term corrosive effect on the value of science in America, which is already under severe attack,” he said. 

Kennedy is also reviewing the childhood immunization schedule. Experts said that could lead to removing recommendations for certain vaccines or changing their suggested use from “routine” – when the default approach is to vaccinate – to more of an individual choice guided by discussions with a health-care provider. 

The hope is that officials on the state and local level influence policy or implement practices to drive higher vaccination rates, said Northeastern’s Maniar. State and local governments may need to “expand the work they do” in some cases to “make up lost ground” and advocate for vaccinations, he added.

Cherry-picking data

Kennedy could also cherry-pick data, studies and any other information about vaccines that “create the misleading impression that shots aren’t safe and cause severe side effects,” according to Gostin. He said Kennedy could include them in official government announcements to undermine the public’s faith in shots. 

On the campaign trail, Kennedy said he wanted to “restore the transparency” around vaccine safety data and records that he accused HHS officials of hiding. Gostin called transparency another “code word” for “highlighting dubious scientific studies.” 

He added that Kennedy’s wording suggests that the government’s existing vaccine information is not transparent, when databases recording adverse events and immunization rates have long been fully open to the public. 

Antonio Perez | Chicago Tribune | Tribune News Service | Getty Images

Kennedy is reportedly shelving promotions for a variety of shots, including a campaign touting seasonal flu jabs. He wanted the CDC’s advertisements to promote the idea of “informed consent” in vaccine decision-making instead, STAT News reported in February. That refers to giving patients important information, including possible risks or benefits of a medical treatment, such as adverse events associated with shots. 

Experts have said while informed consent is important, shifting the framing of advertisements for shots that the CDC has long recommended to focus more on the potential risks could undermine people’s willingness to get vaccinated.

“When a parent exercises informed consent not to have their child immunized with measles, it certainly puts that child at risk, but it puts every child in that school with them at risk,” Gostin said. 

Kennedy would need approval from Congress to change the existing legal liability protections in place for vaccine makers, but he could still undermine them in other ways, experts said. HHS’ National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program currently pays patients injured by standard childhood vaccines and shields drugmakers from litigation. 

As HHS secretary, Kennedy can remove or add to the list of vaccines and injuries included and covered by that program, Michaud said. Any changes to the list could change some liability protections for vaccine makers, potentially spurring a wave of litigation over alleged injuries from the shots, he added. 

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