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BY Anna-Louise Jackson

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As with golden handcuffs that keep many employees from jumping ship, a golden mortgage may be preventing many homeowners from moving addresses.

A recent surge in mortgage rates that’s seen the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hit as high as 7.6% is keeping many would-be homebuyers on the sidelines—and particularly those who locked in historically low rates several years ago. Loans originated between mid-2019 and mid-2022, when rates dipped below 3%, now account for 42.8% of the market, according to a report released Thursday by Realtor.com.

Nearly half of U.S. homeowners are currently sitting in a home with a mortgage rate of less than 4%, including about one in five homeowners who are locked in at a rate of less than 3%, according to the latest figures from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.…