Mortgage rates didn't move much today, and markets have been very quiet due to the holiday week. So we'll take a quick moment for a retrospective.
In September 2022, 30yr fixed mortgage ...
Mortgage rates are based on trading levels in the bond market and bond market activity has been extremely slow, as is normally the case during the Christmas holiday week. The side effect o...
Holidays have inconsistent impacts on mortgage rates because holiday's have inconsistent impacts on the bond market (and rates are dictated by the bond market). Bond traders (the people buying ...
The week's big story is still the big jump in rates that took place after Wednesday's Fed announcement. And while rates remain noticeably elevated on the week due to that jump, they're set ...
We received some anonymous feedback regarding recent rate commentary that serves as a good reminder that not everyone may be picking up what we're putting down, or worse yet, picking up things th...
If anyone needed any further convincing that a Fed rate cut is no guarantee of lower mortgage rates , today is a great piece of evidence. Perhaps "great" is the wrong word. There was...
Mortgage rates have been having a much calmer week compared to last week. Monday brought a modest decline versus last Friday and today's rates are effectively unchanged.
While the ...
Last week wasn't great for mortgage rates . They moved higher on each of the 5 days. Moreover, there was a distinct lack of logical motivation from the economic data. In fact, ...
There's no easy way to say it: it was a bad week for mortgage rates . Actually, it was a bad week for interest rates in general and mortgage rates typically follow the rest of the rate m...
It's been a bummer of a week for mortgage rates with modest to moderate increases every day so far. Adding insult to injury is the fact that there hasn't been any compelling reason for th...
Mortgage rates were having a pretty decent day at first. The bond market was only slightly weaker overnight (implies some upward pressure on rates), but quickly improved after the Consumer...
Between November 18th and December 6th, the average top tier 30yr fixed mortgage rate moved down from 7.08 to 6.68. A 0.40% drop is rather significant, especially over the course of only 3 ...
Mortgage rates ended last week with an impressive drop to the lowest levels in more than a month and a half. Today's rates ended up being the 2nd lowest over that time after the average le...
As of last week, rates were showing some signs of resilience, but they had to wait for the true test from this week's jobs report. Spoiler alert: they passed the test.
It wasn't that the h...
It's been a remarkably calm week for mortgage rates , and a fairly decent one relative to several recent examples. The average top tier 30yr fixed rate hovered just over 7% for most of Nov...
Mortgage lenders generally try to avoid setting rates more than once per day, but they will make changes if the underlying bond market is moving enough. Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) are...
The bond market is the primary driver of mortgage rate movement and normally, "weakness" equates to higher rates. Bonds are slightly weaker today compared to yesterday afternoon, but mortg...
Mortgage rates remain elevated relative to the levels seen in September and early October, but they've definitely moved down a bit from their recent highs. Thanksgiving week saw the lowest...
The interest rate market continues the healing process after taking heavy damage in October. During the course of that month, the average top tier conventional 30yr fixed rate increased mor...
Although there was a busier calendar of economic data today, mortgage rates are little changed after dropping at the fastest pace in several weeks to start the new week. Economic data is one of...
Last Monday, mortgage rates were near the highest levels in more than 3 months. A week later, and the average lender is right in line with the lowest levels in more than a month. Th...
Starting in early October, mortgage rates experienced significant volatility, meaning the average day over day change was much bigger than normal. While the term "volatility" technically ...
They may not be low. In fact, they may still be a lot higher than you want, but at least they haven't been too volatility this week. For the 7th day in a row, the top tier, convention...
Remember October and the first part of November--not because of the election, but rather because of the relentless rise in mortgage rates ? Would you rather forget? You're not alone....
Ask your favorite curmudgeonly old market watcher and they'll be happy to explain what "always" happens in financial markets when there's breaking news regarding large scale geopolitical risk.&nb...
The average top tier conventional 30yr fixed rate was just a hair over 7% on Friday afternoon and the same is true at the start of the new week. Rates are based on bonds, but while bonds mo...
This afternoon's mortgage rates are higher than yesterday's latest levels. That's a result of bond market weakness seen late yesterday and earlier this morning. Why would yesterday'...
Losses... weakness... selling pressure... When any of these things happen in the bond market, it puts upward pressure on interest rates . Mortgage rates are primarily determined by...
While there's been plenty of movement in the average mortgage rate on any given day recently, today was not one of them. 30yr fixed rates remained above 7%, but technically fell 0.01% (an a...
Last Thursday and Friday offered some hope that the persistent move to higher rates was finally leveling off. It wasn't necessarily a rational hope, but if nothing else, it was "nice" to se...
The bond market dictates day to day movement for all manner of interest rates , including mortgages. On election night, bond yields (another word for "rates") spiked as soon as traders fel...
There's a distinct risk that, even in the financial community, that people will look back on today's drop in interest rates and conclude it must have something to do with the Federal Reserve's ...
Mortgage rates spent the entire month of October moving higher at a fairly quick pace. Some of that had to do with stronger economic data, but at least as much had to do with the bond mark...
More often than not, mortgage lenders only set rates once a day. Their decisions are based on trading levels in the underlying bond market. Even though bonds are constantly moving, it doesn...
Love it or hate it, election-related volatility has been having a big impact on the bond market and, thus, mortgage rates . Most of the volatility has resulted in higher rates, but there w...
It is our longstanding policy to strictly avoid politics except in cases where the political realm legitimately intersects with relevant events for rates. Now is clearly one of those times. The d...
Mortgage rates rates moved moderately higher today, and while that leaves the average 30yr fixed rate only slightly higher than it was on Tuesday morning (7.09 vs 7.08), it's also the highest ra...
The jobs report that came out at the beginning of October was a big wake up call for interest rates . Up until then, the prevailing belief was that the labor market was progressively softe...
Mortgage rates tend to be updated only once per day. Lenders set rates based on trading levels in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) which are essentially bonds that are tied to cash flows f...
It's no mystery that mortgage rates have had a terrible October. As of last Friday, the average lender's top tier 30yr fixed rates were up to 6.90--an increase of more than 0.625% this mo...
Mortgage rates reached their highest level of the week on Wednesday and haven't really moved since then. Technically each subsequent day saw a microscopic reduction in the average top tier...
Mortgage rates have risen every day since October 15th and some of the jumps have been fairly big. That followed an even bigger increase earlier in the month with the whole ordeal accounti...
Mortgage rates have been moving two directions recently and both of them are "up." Only the pace changes. Today's pace was modest to moderate, but because we were already at the high...
Mortgage rates jumped to their highest levels since late July yesterday. Underlying market movement wasn't readily attributable to any singular headline or economic report. Leading t...
By the smallest of margins, mortgage rates are back up to levels last seen in July. That means we've gone from being fairly close to 6% in mid-September to being nearly as close to 7% tod...
There hasn't been much day to day movement in mortgage rates after the big jump caused by the jobs report earlier in the month. That jump ended on Monday the 7th and the average 30yr fixe...
Mortgage rates are driven by the bond market and bonds consistently take cues from economic data. Traders have been waiting on this Thursday's economic data ever since last Thursday, large...
Mortgage rates have been holding in a fairly narrow range since the middle of last week and today was one of the least interesting additions to the trend. The average lender is essentially...
The average mortgage lender is quoting rates that are just a fraction of a hair lower today compared to last Friday. Lenders were either closed or otherwise not able to update rates yesterd...
While this week's rates were substantially higher than most of last week's, if we remove a few flashes of volatility, the average lender stayed very close to Monday morning's levels. ...