Story at a glance
About 1.7 million homes were bought in 2019 using adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs). Many of them were “5/1” loans: five years of a lower fixed interest rate, then a conversion to a market-based rate that’s adjusted once or twice a year. That means a mortgage based on a 2019 interest rate of 3.5% or even lower may balloon to around 6.5%. And that is a........