For the first time since May 2024, the cost of borrowing to own a home in America has crossed back above 7 percent — a threshold that carries weight not merely as a number, but as a measure of how much economic anxiety has accumulated. Inflation that refuses to fully retreat, and geopolitical tensions centered on the Middle East, have together pushed Treasury yields and mortgage rates upward, tightening the grip on a housing market already strained. The crossing of this line is a reminder that the largest financial decision most people make in a lifetime is never made in isolation from the wid