It depends quite a bit on the lender in question, but at some point between yesterday morning and this morning, the average lender dropped rates at the fastest single-day pace in months. Before you get excited, there's a catch--two or three of them actually. The first catch is that some... Read more

The past few days have seen rates surge to new multi-decade highs with the average lender quoting 7.6+ for top tier conventional 30yr fixed scenarios. Not too much has changed today apart from the direction of the movement and the fact that modest gains weren't brutally dashed as the day... Read more

It's with no great pleasure (none of any kind, for that matter) that we find ourselves in a position to report, yet again, that mortgage rates have sailed decisively to another new multi-decade high.  Today's installment is fairly unpleasant given that the average lender actually began the day in slightly... Read more

In terms of day-over-day changes, today's mortgage rate movement was forgettable.  The average borrower wouldn't see much of a difference from yesterday's rates at the average lender.  In both cases, those rates would be at or near the highest levels since 2001. The underlying bond market experienced a bit more... Read more

The average lender was already very close to multi-decade highs for 30yr fixed mortgage rates last Thursday afternoon, but a modest recovery on Friday meant that there was a chance we could have avoided printing today's headline this week.  Unfortunately, the bond market started the day in rough shape and... Read more

Mortgage rates actually recovered a bit on Friday as the underlying bond market experienced a modest correction after spiking to the weakest levels in more than a decade over the past 2 days.  Despite the improvement, mortgages are also still near multi-decade highs.  Why is this the case when the... Read more

Rates moved only moderately higher on Wednesday after the Fed rocked the bond market with its updated rate forecasts.  To reiterate yesterday's analysis, it's not that the market is expecting the Fed to be accurate in those forecasts.  Rather, the forecasts help investors understand how the Fed's approach will be... Read more

The Fed did not hike its policy rate today, but it did release updated forecasts that showed the average Fed member expects rates to be half a percent higher at the end of 2024 and 2025 compared to their forecasts released in June. The market was expecting a higher average... Read more

The FOMC (Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee) is what most people are referring to when they say "the Fed." This is the group that meets 8 times a year to decide the ideal level of the Fed Funds Rate.  The Fed Funds Rate sets an anchor point for the shortest-term... Read more

Mortgage rates began the day in slightly higher territory, but recovered after lenders offered mid-day price improvements.  These sorts of mid-day changes are not uncommon when the bond market improves enough during any given business day. Assigning objective numbers to the changes makes them less interesting.  The average lender was... Read more

In and of itself, today wasn't too bad for mortgage rates. Things got a bit worse, but the change from yesterday was average or slightly lower.   There's even still a little bit of a cushion between current levels and the long-term highs seen in late August. Mortgage rates are often... Read more

Whatever is bad for the economy is typically good for interest rates.  That's the grim irony for the mortgage market and it's the reason you might find a crowd of rate watchers feeling good about downbeat economic data.  It's not that they are happy about job losses or lower economic... Read more

Today's big to-do was the release of August's Consumer Price Index (CPI), a critical inflation report with the power to significantly influence rate momentum.  In a nutshell, if inflation came in higher than expected, odds favored higher rates and vice versa.  Luckily, those odds didn't pan out. While headline inflation... Read more

Mortgage rates started the week slightly higher for the average lender, but still below last week's highs.  Most of what was lost yesterday was gained back today.   All of the above makes the recent movement seem bigger than it actually has been.  The last 5 business days have been some... Read more

While it's impossible to predict the future when it comes to financial markets, it's usually possible to identify the events that have higher potential to cause bigger swings. Other times, volatility strikes on days when it wasn't entirely expected. That's how this past week began.  After Monday's holiday closure, rates... Read more