New survey showed job jitters are reshaping timelines for big-ticket purchases
More American workers have been reshuffling plans for big purchases such as homes and cars as they weigh the risk of losing their paycheques, a new Redfin survey showed.
The findings arrived as lenders navigate a market where affordability, AI disruption and a softer white‑collar labour market continue to collide.
Job worries and the homebuying timetable
The survey, conducted March 9–10 among 1,005 US adults, found that 36% of workers were delaying or canceling plans for a major purchase due to job security. Meanwhile, 31% already accelerated or planned to accelerate a purchase for the same reason.
The real estate giant reported that 7% said they canceled a big‑ticket purchase altogether and 30% said they were delaying one, while 16% already bought sooner than expected and another 17% planned to move earlier.
Those shares marked a modest improvement from August 2025, when Redfin found that 42% of workers were putting off or scrapping major purchases, but they still pointed to an uneasy consumer.
At the same time, roughly two‑thirds of workers, or 69%, said they felt somewhat or very confident about their job security, while 27% said they were somewhat or very concerned.
Nearly one‑third, 32% of workers, said they were more concerned about their job security than six months earlier, compared with 18% who felt more confident.
Company performance and technology shifts loomed large: 29% of worried workers pointed to their employer’s performance as the main source of anxiety, and 18% cited the impact of artificial intelligence, followed by government restructuring at 14% and their own performance at 12%.
Housing stress bled into payments and savings
The survey suggested that job worries already showed up in housing performance. Seven percent of workers said they missed a rent or mortgage payment entirely in the prior three months, and another 10% said they have been late.
Among workers who were concerned about job security, 28% said they missed or been late on a recent housing payment, compared with 70% of confident workers who said they stayed current.
Looking ahead, 15% of respondents said they were very or somewhat likely to be late on rent or mortgage in the next three months, and 13% said they were very or somewhat likely to miss a payment altogether.
A slim majority have some buffer. Most workers – 55% – said they have an emergency fund to cover monthly rent or mortgage in a crisis, while about one‑third, 34%, said they do not.
Among those with reserves, one in five said their fund would cover six months of housing costs, and 16% said three months.
Those self‑reported stresses arrived as industry data showed mortgage performance weakening from very low delinquency levels.
Three-quarters of Americans carried debt in early 2026, and many said it reshapes how and when they buy homes, according to new research from Clever Real Estate, a St. Louis–based real estate company.
The Mortgage Bankers Association, meanwhile, reported that the overall mortgage delinquency rate edged up to about 4.26% at the end of 2025, up from roughly 3.9% in mid‑2025, though still below long‑run averages.
A cooler labor market fed buyer hesitation
Government data showed job openings drifting down toward roughly 6.5 million to 6.9 million in late 2025 and early 2026, with quits lower and layoffs picking up in some sectors. That's a pattern economists described as a “no‑hire, no‑fire” environment that left workers cautious about moving or stretching for larger mortgages.
Redfin’s August 2025 survey painted a similar picture of unease, and Chen Zhao, the company’s head of economics research, said at the time that “many workers are worried about job security as they watch their companies adjust to this uncertain economy and increasingly look to AI and other new technologies for efficiency gains” and that “from a housing perspective, that wariness is keeping some would‑be homebuyers on the sidelines.”
Mortgage professionals already reported the consequences. Brokers described buyers walking away from contracts or refusing to proceed with homes that would stretch their budgets in an uncertain economy.
Melissa Cohn, regional vice president of William Raveis Mortgage, told Mortgage Professional America that she has “seen a lot of people back out of their contracts” and that “there are people backing out due to uncertainty.”
Amir Nurani, broker-owner at Left Coast Leaders, warned that “AI is creating job displacement, whether you like it or not,” and argued that headlines about tech‑sector layoffs have started to filter into borrower psychology.
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