Forest Hill's Jeff Judge in MarketWatch: Before you date that 6.5% mortgage rate, check the gap

By Jeff Judge, CFP®, AEP®, ChFC®, CLU®, Managing Partner, Chesapeake Financial Planners, Forest Hill, MD.

Mortgage rates are sitting in the mid-6% range, and I keep hearing the same question from buyers here in Harford County: should I buy now and just refinance when rates come down?

It is a reasonable question. And there is a version of it that makes sense. But most people asking it have done the math on the rate they hope to have two years from now, not on what happens if that rate never arrives.

When MarketWatch asked me about this recently, I called it a stress test: can you absorb the full payment for 24 to 36 months without touching your investment accounts or running up debt? Because if the answer is no, the strategy does not work regardless of where rates go. As I put it in the piece, "you're not buying the home, you're gambling on a rate forecast."

For Harford County buyers, that gap is very real right now. Inflation just hit a three-year high at 4.2%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, which complicates the rate forecast considerably. No one knows when rates will drop, or by how much.

What I want to see before I call a purchase safe: three to six months of the real payment (that is the full number, including insurance, utilities, and maintenance), a separate cash buffer for the refinance closing costs themselves, and an emergency fund that has not been raided to cover the down payment. If all three boxes are checked, buying today can still be a sound long-term decision. If they are not, the math does not support it yet.

The housing decision is a cash flow question first. The rate is secondary.

This piece builds on "Dating a 6.5% rate? Inside one high-stakes homebuying bet," in MarketWatch (June 2026)

Jeff Judge, CFP®, AEP®, ChFC®, CLU®, is Managing Partner at Chesapeake Financial Planners in Forest Hill, MD. Book an intro call.