Soaring insurance costs could finally put a lid on home prices, real estate experts say

• The housing market has been brutal in recent years as prices keep rising. 
• While high mortgage rates didn't bring prices down, steep insurance costs could put a lid on further appreciation. 
• "You can see in the course of even a year or two, prices begin to respond because people are very sensitive to this."

When mortgage rates started to spike in 2022, the thinking was that higher borrowing costs would put a lid on prices, which had spiraled endlessly upward since the pandemic sparked a buying frenzy. 

That didn't quite happen, and home prices have kept climbing, so much so that a recent report from Zillow said would-be buyers need to earn 80% more than pre-pandemic to afford the median-priced home.