http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/topic/mortgage-rates Mortgage Rates Predictions and Analysis https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-04292026 Wed, 29 Apr 2026 20:09:00 GMT 69f268a0fb59458ec025b750 Matthew Graham Mortgage rates jumped higher today at the fastest pace in weeks to the highest levels since March 30th. There were two key motivations for the increase, but one accounted for a vast majority of the damage. News came out overnight that spoke to the possibility of a prolonged blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Markets took this seriously because it involved conversations with oil executives to assess the the impact of a prolonged blockade on domestic energy markets and fuel prices. Bond yields (which correlate with rates) and oil prices lurched higher again this morning after a White House official reiterated/corroborated the overnight news. The supporting actor in today's rate drama was the Fed announcement. While the Fed didn't hike rates, 3 voters voiced their opposition to the wording of the Fed's statement because it tacitly implies the Fed is more inclined to cut rates vs hike them in the near future. Those 3 voters would prefer to indicate that rates could go either way depending on inflation and the economy. The market took this as a minor negative indication for rates. Measuring in terms of 10-year Treasury yields, more than 80% of today's rate spike was in place before the Fed announcement came out. The average mortgage lender is back to 6.50% for top tier 30-year fixed scenarios, up from 6.38% yesterday. Most lenders made mid-day adjustments to even higher rates as the underlying bond market continued to suffer into the afternoon.  Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-04282026 Tue, 28 Apr 2026 19:32:00 GMT 69f10e1a80727c719af87362 Matthew Graham Mortgage rates moved moderately higher today for the average lender, but not for any exciting reasons. Rather, the change has more to do with timing of the underlying market movement. While it's true that mortgage rates are directly influenced by the bond market, mortgage lenders prefer to set rates once per day. From there, they will occasionally make adjustments if the bond market experiences enough volatility. The catch is that lenders are less likely to adjust rates the later it is in the afternoon and if the bond market has been changing steadily/gradually. With all that in mind, yesterday saw a steady, gradual decline in the bond market that persisted into the late afternoon. As such, most lenders didn't go to the trouble of adjusting rates yesterday. In other words, the average lender was already planning on raising rates a bit this morning even if the bond market started the day flat. But bonds lost even more ground this morning (before lenders decided on rates for the day). Bottom line, lenders were tasked with adjusting for 2 days of modest weakness all at once. The result is a move that is bigger than the average recent day, but not because the underlying market movement was bigger or more volatile than average. [thirtyyearmortgagerates] Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-04272026 Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:21:00 GMT 69efb8d43b258adc6dac24d3 Matthew Graham Despite the elevated volatility risk heading into the weekend, mortgage rates are starting the week in exactly the same territory compared to Friday afternoon. As always, our rate tracking refers to top-tier 30-year fixed rates for the average lender. The absence of meaningful movement in the underlying bond market is a testament to an increasingly high bar of relevance for war-related news. Specifically, the Iran war is the main source of inspiration not only for oil prices, but also for the bonds that dictate interest rates.  Earlier in the war, almost any headline had a visible impact on bonds. But now it's only the most significant developments. Those are harder to come by in late April as investors are basically waiting for either an official and permanent ceasefire, or a catastrophic re-escalation. Anything in between has proven to be fairly uninteresting when it comes to bond market influence. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-04242026 Fri, 24 Apr 2026 19:31:00 GMT 69ebc6ebff116b9e9dc940e3 Matthew Graham With zero change versus Thursday's latest levels, the 30yr fixed mortgage rate index maintained a 0.03% range for the entire week (and 0.04% going back to last Tuesday). At 6.32%, today's mark is close enough to Friday's 6.29% to say rates are hovering at the lowest levels in more than a month. The sideways drift reflects uncertainty surrounding the next phase in the Iran war. Prospects for negotiations were called into question for most of the week, but improved somewhat on Friday. A successful end to the war would likely bring some additional improvement for rates, but the true test would be the longer-term realities for oil prices and their impact on inflation. The week ahead brings the next Fed announcement. Markets are pricing in a zero percent chance of a cut or a hike. The Fed's rate cutting hands are tied until/unless inflation moves back down and they won't preemptively assume that will happen until post-war oil price dynamics play out for a few months. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-04232026 Thu, 23 Apr 2026 18:41:00 GMT 69ea6a0fe7669c3f922adabc Matthew Graham Thursday saw a continuation of the recent trend of very low volatility for mortgage rates. The average lender's top-tier 30yr fixed rates were perfectly unchanged from yesterday and in the same narrow range as the past 7 business days (6.29-6.33%).  Despite the uneventful outcome, there was some underlying market volatility mid-day following a series of war-related headlines. The news involved the status of Iran's negotiation team as well as potential indications of air strikes in Iran. The market reacted swiftly (a resumption of hostilities would push rates/oil higher and stocks lower), but several of the headlines were subsequently retracted/clarified and the overall market reaction ended up being relatively small. A handful of mortgage lenders responded to the market movement and increased rates. Bonds (which dictate rates) remain a bit worse off compared to this morning, so if there's not a bond market rebound by tomorrow morning, other lenders could make similar adjustments. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-04222026 Wed, 22 Apr 2026 19:22:00 GMT 69e922f3b75229a69132533d Matthew Graham Rates remain focused on oil prices and war-related developments. With yesterday's ceasefire extension and today's ambiguity over the time frame of that extension, rates are in a distinct holding pattern until the next phase of escalation/de-escalation comes into better focus. For now, the market is generally betting on de-escalation as seen in stocks being near all-time highs and bond yields (aka "rates") being well off the highs seen in late March. In this environment, day to day rate movement is fairly incidental. Today's installment brought modest improvement versus yesterday's latest levels, but the average lender remains in the same tight range (6.29-6.33 for a best-case scenario 30yr fixed) that's been intact for over a week now. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-04212026 Tue, 21 Apr 2026 18:49:00 GMT 69e7c9353e5955c6bd75f2c3 Matthew Graham Technically and officially, today's average top tier 30yr fixed mortgage rate is the highest since last Monday. The catch is that there hasn't been much movement since then with the overall range being limited to 0.04%.  Today's jump was the largest upward movement during that time. There was some upward pressure on rates from stronger employment data in the morning, but the market was even more focused on the uncertain status of US/Iran peace talks.  As the domestic business day winds down, it doesn't look like there will be concrete news on a ceasefire extension. As such, volatility potential remains elevated heading into Wednesday. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-04202026 Mon, 20 Apr 2026 19:21:00 GMT 69e67e035c4dbf441b706aa2 Matthew Graham Despite some initial signs of volatility in financial markets over the weekend, the bond market managed to avoid losing much ground. Because bonds dictate mortgage rate movement, the average lender remained very close to Friday's latest levels.  MND's rate index (a measure of top-tier 30yr fixed rates) rose by 0.01% which is the smallest increment we measure. Since April 14th, the index has held inside a narrow range of 0.03% with the bottom of that range representing the lowest rate in over a month. Volatility is a bigger risk over the next 2 days as the 2 week Iran war ceasefire expires. The market is generally positioned for further de-escalation, but there's more room for improvement if the war officially ends and Hormuz fully reopens. Conversely, if there's unexpected escalation in the next 48 hours, rates could also move back up. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-04172026 Fri, 17 Apr 2026 20:06:00 GMT 69e294ce4a73c0343647cff6 Matthew Graham Today was a victory for mortgage rates, but not nearly as much of a victory as the underlying bond market would suggest. The good news is that the end result is the lowest average 30yr fixed rate in just over a month.  The other news isn't bad, per se, but it is a bit confusing.  As we often discuss, mortgage rates are based on bonds because mortgages "turn into" bonds in order to be traded on the secondary market. You don't need to understand that process in detail to accept that it's true.  Case in point, here's a chart* that overlays our average 30yr fixed rate and the most prevalent mortgage-backed security (a bond comprised of a pool of multiple mortgages). Zooming in on Friday, we see bonds breaking lower at a faster pace than mortgage rates. This is actually very normal behavior for mortgage rates--especially when they're falling into the lowest territory of the past few weeks. If the bond market gains are maintained next week, rates should increasingly be willing to close the gap. Conversely, if bonds bounce in the other direction, rates likely will as well, but they'll have some cushion and may not need to bounce as quickly. * in both of today's charts, the right axis shows mortgage-backed securities PRICES. In the bond market, price varies inversely with yield (i.e. higher prices = lower rates). As such, the right axis is inverted (higher values at the bottom) in order to highlight the correlation with rates on the left axis.  Otherwise, the chart would look like a Rorschach test and it would be impossible to detect these subtle changes.  Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-04162026 Thu, 16 Apr 2026 19:52:00 GMT 69e13ec999213054f74f136a Matthew Graham On average, today's top-tier 30 year fixed mortgage rates are exactly the same as yesterday's. Rates are driven by the bond market and bonds continue waiting for bigger developments in the Iran war. At the moment, the market is in a sort of limbo as time remains on the 2-week ceasefire. In the meantime, there's a multitude of lower consequence war-related headlines on any given day. These have caused a bit of back and forth volatility in bonds, but not enough directional movement to nudge rates very far in either direction since Tuesday.   Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates