More Americans are putting dreams of homeownership on pause as ‘fear’ and ‘buyer’s remorse’ sweep the real estate market, says the nation’s 3rd largest homebuilder Rising housing costs have resulted in many would-be buyers being priced out of homeownership. Homebuilder PulteGroup said 15% of its contracts fell through in the second quarter of this year. Other builders like D.R. Horton have also seen an uptick in home cancellations. Inflation and interest rate hikes are driving up the cost of housing — and it''s causing many would-be homebuyers to put their homeownership dreams on pause. As buyers get cold feet , some of the nation''s largest homebuilders are seeing their production volumes fall while their cancellation rates rise. PulteGroup, a residential home construction company based in Atlanta, Georgia, is just one of many. The homebuilder''s net new orders were down 23% from the same time period in 2021, it reported in its second-quarter earnings call Tuesday. The cancellation rate of 15% was up from 7% just a year ago. Although Pulte maintained a mostly positive outlook, there are signs that buyer behavior is impacting their operations. During Q2, the dollar value of its net new orders decreased by 8% from 2021 to $3.9 billion.