Thu, Mar 10 2022, 3:36 PM
It's Thursday and thus time once again for Freddie Mac's weekly mortgage rate survey. An industry standard report dating back to the 70s, Freddie's s...
Wed, Mar 9 2022, 4:41 PM
Mortgage rates officially hit new multi-year highs in February. At the time, you'd have to go back to the first half of 2019 to see anything higher...
Tue, Mar 8 2022, 4:36 PM
Mortgage rates are based on bonds and bonds are having a tough time in the past few days. Bonds such as US Treasuries often benefit from terrible t...
Mon, Mar 7 2022, 4:14 PM
Mortgage rates have experienced significant volatility so far in 2022. At first, this was almost exclusively a function of the Federal Reserve or, ...
Fri, Mar 4 2022, 8:46 PM
Financial markets were already dealing with rapidly evolving Fed policy shifts, a big jump in rates, and a big drop in stocks. But after Russia invade...
Thu, Mar 3 2022, 4:47 PM
The first 2 days of the week marked the best 48 hour stint for mortgage rates since March 2020, and one of the best on record. Such victories require...
Wed, Mar 2 2022, 4:56 PM
On a normal week, we can follow day to day movement in rates and point out how far behind the times the week-to-week changes are. This time around, t...
Tue, Mar 1 2022, 4:48 PM
First thing's first. We need to get some caveats out of the way. The following should always be assumed when reading mortgage rate coverage, but I...
Mon, Feb 28 2022, 4:38 PM
Mortgage rates are based on bonds and bonds are often the target of safe haven buying in times of geopolitical distress. The situation in Ukraine c...
Thu, Feb 24 2022, 4:33 PM
Financial markets were intently focused on Russia's invasion of Ukraine today. Such things tend to push interest rates lower and today was no excep...
Wed, Feb 23 2022, 4:25 PM
It was another bad day for the mortgage market. This has been the norm so far in 2022 as financial markets continue repositioning for less and less s...
Tue, Feb 22 2022, 4:51 PM
Heading into the extended weekend, there was a small possibility that today's mortgage rates would turn out to be slightly lower. Reasons for this ...
Fri, Feb 18 2022, 4:55 PM
With things still up in the air in terms of geopolitical risk, markets are seeking safer havens. Most recently, this is affecting stocks a bit more t...
Thu, Feb 17 2022, 4:35 PM
It's Thursday and thus time once again for the weekly installment of Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey. For the 2nd time this year, Fred...
Wed, Feb 16 2022, 3:24 PM
There have been a few hours of a few days over the past week where mortgage rates have been just a bit higher than they are this afternoon. But for...
Mon, Feb 14 2022, 4:07 PM
Last Friday was an interesting day for mortgage rates and the broader bond market. Rates began the day roughly in line with Thursday's latest levels,...
Fri, Feb 11 2022, 7:31 PM
There were 3 distinct parts to this week. The first part consisted of the entirety of the first 3 days. Rates didn't move much as the market contin...
Thu, Feb 10 2022, 12:22 PM
There are many different ways to track mortgage rates and several different sources quoted in the news. For decades, the most prevalently-quoted sour...
Wed, Feb 9 2022, 4:28 PM
The day began with so much potential --at least in the sense that it could have served as the foundation for slightly lower mortgage rates this after...
Tue, Feb 8 2022, 4:42 PM
Last Friday continues to be the epicenter of the most recent push to multi-year highs for mortgage rates. The average lender jumped by roughly an e...
Fri, Feb 4 2022, 12:29 PM
Rates have been trending higher in fits and starts since August 2020, but the mortgage market was insulated from much of the pain due to its disconn...
Thu, Feb 3 2022, 4:27 PM
What a difference a day makes. Unfortunately, it's an unpleasant difference in this case as mortgage rates went from the lowest levels in more than a...
Wed, Feb 2 2022, 3:36 PM
After a month like January (where rates rose very quickly), we'll take any victory we can get. In today's case, that means the celebration of rates...
Mon, Jan 31 2022, 3:44 PM
Mortgage rates moved higher at their fastest pace in several years at the beginning of January . Even though the volatility died down after the firs...
Fri, Jan 28 2022, 4:52 PM
January has been a month marked by the market's adjustment to a shift in the Fed policy outlook. This began right at the outset and resulted in highe...
Wed, Jan 26 2022, 6:04 PM
Fed policy is critically important to interest rates and January has marked a shift in the Fed policy outlook. In not so many words, the Fed sees its...
Tue, Jan 25 2022, 3:45 PM
It's a tale as old as time for those who closely follow the day to day gyrations in the mortgage market. Bond volatility forces lenders to raise ra...
Fri, Jan 21 2022, 8:09 PM
The bond market returned from a 3 day weekend to find yields surging higher on Tuesday. That pushed mortgage rates to fresh 2 year highs and added em...
Thu, Jan 20 2022, 3:31 PM
Today was one of the most uneventful days in recent memory for mortgage rates. The average lender is in very similar territory compared to yesterda...
Wed, Jan 19 2022, 4:22 PM
Mortgage rates have been having a bad 2022 so far with the average lender up to the highest levels in roughly 2 years as of yesterday. The reason? T...
Tue, Jan 18 2022, 4:12 PM
One of the very few welcome byproducts of the pandemic was the pervasive availability of new all-time low mortgage rates. Depending on when you c...
Fri, Jan 14 2022, 7:20 PM
In the past 2 weeks, press coverage of the Federal Reserve's policy outlook has ramped up significantly. The Fed is now expected to start hiking rate...
Thu, Jan 13 2022, 4:06 PM
In almost every case, a day of bond market improvement results in rates moving lower. That makes sense considering mortgage rates are based primarily...
Wed, Jan 12 2022, 4:25 PM
Interest rates are typically determined by bond market. Mortgage rates, for instance, are directly tied to mortgage-specific bonds know as mortgage-b...
Tue, Jan 11 2022, 4:39 PM
2022 has gotten off to a bad start for the bond market and consequently, mortgage rates. The pace has been on the aggressive side with the average ...
Mon, Jan 10 2022, 3:24 PM
Last week wasn't a great one for mortgage rates. Most lenders were roughly a quarter of a point higher on a conventional 30yr fixed scenario by Fri...
Fri, Jan 7 2022, 5:00 PM
Seemingly overnight, the mortgage rate narrative has changed rather drastically, at least in relative terms. While rates had risen gradually from near...
Thu, Jan 6 2022, 3:53 PM
Regular readers know that we're fond of setting the weekly record straight in cases where day-to-day rate movements paint a drastically different pict...
Tue, Jan 4 2022, 4:49 PM
Mortgage rates had been drifting modestly higher in general in the past 2 weeks, but the pace is accelerating in the new year. For some lenders, this...
Mon, Jan 3 2022, 4:13 PM
The year is not off to a great start for mortgage rates . At the end of last week, we were already looking at the highest levels in months. The s...
Thu, Dec 30 2021, 3:15 PM
Mortgage rates began the week in decent shape, but moved higher somewhat abruptly yesterday. Context is important though. The smallest increment of ...
Tue, Dec 28 2021, 4:30 PM
Mortgage rates hit their highest level in 2 weeks heading into Christmas weekend. The average lender raised costs by a very small amount again on Mond...
Wed, Dec 22 2021, 7:48 PM
Mortgage rates continued higher for the third straight day on Wednesday. This brings the average lender to the highest levels in exactly 2 weeks. But ...
Mon, Dec 20 2021, 5:28 PM
For most lenders, mortgage rates edged slightly higher at the start of the holiday-shortened week. The exception would be among those lenders who made...
Fri, Dec 17 2021, 6:45 PM
Sure, we could write a headline that attempts to distill the concept of a big picture struggle between the forces exerting upward pressure on rates an...
Wed, Dec 15 2021, 4:25 PM
Mortgage rates were fairly flat heading into today's important Fed announcement. Despite arguably receiving bad news, they didn't move too much higher...
Tue, Dec 14 2021, 3:30 PM
Traditionally, financial markets have been interested in announcements from the Federal Reserve due to the Fed's policy rate (the Fed Funds Rate) and ...
Mon, Dec 13 2021, 3:58 PM
Mortgage rates have been fairly flat in the bigger picture, but each passing day continues to bring small scale movements. This is almost always the c...
Fri, Dec 10 2021, 5:37 PM
Financial market volatility increased noticeably after the emergence of the omicron variant. Last week, that proved to be good for rates and bad for s...
Thu, Dec 9 2021, 2:52 PM
Mortgage rates stabilized yesterday after moving higher on the first 2 days of the week. They managed to improve modestly today despite some volatilit...