http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/topic/mortgage-rates Mortgage Rates Predictions and Analysis https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-08212026 Fri, 21 Aug 2026 18:35:00 GMT 6a889b705d1d45f8c1708c4c Matthew Graham For all practical purposes, Friday's mortgage rates were unchanged versus Thursday's, but if we're splitting hairs, the average lender rose 0.01% to 6.77% for a top tier 30yr fixed.  While many news outlets continue focusing on the mid-week announcement regarding Treasury's bond buyback program, today's bond market volatility was unrelated. Current levels are close to where they were before Wednesday's announcement and that makes sense to anyone who Wednesday's market reaction as 'overdone.'  The upcoming week offers much more economic data in addition to potentially relevant comments from Fed Chair Warsh at the Fed's annual Jackson Hole conference. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-08202026 Thu, 20 Aug 2026 20:38:00 GMT 6a87677ca771311f320467c1 Matthew Graham While Freddie Mac's weekly mortgage rate survey may show rates moving slightly lower this week, today's rates are actually higher than they were at the same time last week (6.76% vs 6.69%). Financial news continued to focus on yesterday's announcement of Treasury buybacks after Secretary Bessent spoke on CNBC this morning, but today's bump in rates had more to do with fuel prices. Treasury yields serve as an almost perfect proxy for intraday rate movement with 10yr yields often seen as the most common at-a-glance benchmark for mortgage rate movement (i.e. they tend to move in the same direction by roughly similar amounts). 10yr yields and oil prices were at the lows of the day at 1am. Oil rose fairly quickly through 8am ET and Treasury yields followed. Both peaked at exactly the same time and then remained broadly sideways all day. This isn't as scandalous or interesting as pretending today's rising rates had something to do with market backlash over the Treasury announcement, but it's the more accurate way to make sense of the day-over-day movement. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-08192026 Wed, 19 Aug 2026 19:43:00 GMT 6a860a373673fa7ad630b667 Matthew Graham Mortgage rates dropped on Wednesday due to a combination of lower oil prices and the announcement of changes to Treasury's bond buyback program. The oil price angle is easy to understand. Throughout the war, higher fuel prices have caused volatility in inflation expectations and inflation is a critical consideration for bonds/rates.  The Treasury buyback news is more complex and highly oversimplified by the average piece of media coverage. Here are the details that matter: The original buyback program began in 2024 under the Biden admin when Yellen was the Treasury secretary It is not quantitative easing or "new money creation."  Treasury gets money from issuing bonds or via other federal receipts (taxes, tariffs, etc) The program was continued/expanded under Trump/Bessent Today's announcement increased the amount of longer-term Treasuries that can be purchased in any given scheduled buying operation. The goal of the program is to promote smoother functioning of the financial market, but it has a tangential benefit to certain interest rates. Because today's announcement focused on longer-term Treasuries, longer-term rates/yields fell the most. Shorter-term rates actually moved up (which makes sense because the money to buy more long-term bonds technically comes at the expense of short-term bonds, all else equal). On major catch for 30yr fixed mortgage rates is that the average mortgage-backed bond for those rates only typically lasts 5-7 years  on average. So even though a mortgage CAN last for 30 years, the market treats them more like 5 year bonds because "duration" is everything when it comes to bond market valuation. All that to say: mortgage rates fell, but not as much as 30yr bonds (which fell A LOT today).  Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-08182026 Tue, 18 Aug 2026 19:33:00 GMT 6a84b5c6b0406193597427e1 Matthew Graham Mortgage rates rose for the third straight day on Tuesday with the average top-tier 30yr fixed rate moving up a modest 0.02% to 6.75%. Notably, the bond market was actually in slightly better shape compared to yesterday--something that would normally be good news for rates. So what's the catch? As is often the case when bonds and mortgages disagree, the x factor is timing. Mortgage lenders prefer to release rates once per day (usually around 10am ET) and they only change rates if the underlying bond market makes a big enough move in either direction.   Bonds lost ground yesterday, but not enough for the average lender to go to the trouble of raising the rates set earlier in the day. As such, lenders had to adjust for that bond market weakness with this morning's offerings. Ironically, the opposite dynamic is playing out today with bonds improving versus opening levels, but not by enough for the average lender to drop the rates set this morning. Now for some context in 3 different levels: current levels are slightly below the mid-point of the past 4 weeks, but the past 4 weeks are at the top of the range seen over the past year. Lastly, the past year has been the the best 12 month stretch for rates since late 2022 and present rates remain below the mid-point of the past 4 years. [thirtyyearmortgagerates] Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-08172026 Mon, 17 Aug 2026 17:27:00 GMT 6a83453f8e245f0bfb9f349c Matthew Graham After ending last week near the lowest level since July 17th, mortgage rates are moving up to start the new week. Motivations are familiar. Escalation in U.S./Iran tensions is pushing fuel prices higher and bond yields continue to correlate. Bond yields correlate with consumer interest rates with near perfection. In mortgage-specific terms, the average top-tier 30yr fixed rate moved up 0.02% today to 6.73%. This is still much lower than the most recent high of 6.85%, but not quite as low as last Thursday's 6.69%. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-08142026 Fri, 14 Aug 2026 18:56:00 GMT 6a7f66f179647791069e32da Matthew Graham First, the bad news: mortgage rates ended the day just a hair higher compared to Thursday, but the change was so small that many borrowers will see little--if any--difference in pricing. Now the good news: apart from yesterday afternoon, today's rates would still be the lowest in 4 weeks (i.e. you'd have to go back to July 17th to see anything lower). Lastly, some news that's neither good nor bad, but simply a bit confusing. Today's higher rates followed this morning's Retail Sales report which came in much weaker than expected. Conventional wisdom would have suggested that weaker data coincides with lower rates.  One issue is that Retail Sales is not in the same league as top tier economic reports like the inflation data seen earlier this week or the jobs report seen last Friday. Also, there can be more nuance to the retail sales data by the time traders consider temporary factors and timing. Lastly, sometimes the bonds market (bonds dictate rate movement) has simply done as well as it's going to do on any given week and it would take a much bigger surprise to overcome trading momentum that is happening for non-data-related reasons. In other words, traders can push back against the week's prevailing momentum on Friday simply as a byproduct of closing out the week's trading positions.  [thirtyyearmortgagerates] Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-08132026 Thu, 13 Aug 2026 20:07:00 GMT 6a7e28ce561180d2a02020a4 Matthew Graham Mortgage rates dropped noticeably on Thursday on a combination of lower oil prices and a lower inflation reading via the Producer Price Index (PPI). Rates are driven by bonds and bonds are highly responsive to the outlook for inflation and the economy. The Iran war caused inflation implications to spike and the periodic relief in fuel prices has coincided with bond market improvement (and lower rates). The official inflation data is just another form of the same benefit. Fuel prices are just one aspect of inflation--albeit a critical one, but they're more of a leading indicator. In contrast, big government data like PPI and yesterday's CPI (Consumer Price Index) help the market more accurately measure the true impact of fuel prices. PPI was only slightly lower than expected, but that was enough to account for most of today's improvement in rates. Top tier 30yr fixed rates fell 0.05% to 6.69% for the average lender. That's the lowest reading since July 17th--just one day shy of 4 weeks ago. [thirtyyearmortgagerates] Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-08122026 Wed, 12 Aug 2026 20:48:00 GMT 6a7cdd25837cd9a70db7d653 Matthew Graham Mortgage lenders set rates around 10am ET every day, but the bond market dictates the day to day changes, and bonds were on the move throughout the overnight trading hours. Granted, the movement wasn't extreme, but much like yesterday, it suggested a bit of optimism heading into this morning's main event: the release of July's Consumer Price Index (CPI).  CPI is one of the two big inflation reports on any given month (the other being PCE) and it has more potential to cause a reaction because it comes out 2 weeks before PCE. Given that last month's CPI showed a sharp drop in inflation and that July's fuel prices had bounced back up, the market was very focused on what the data would actually reflect. As it happened, forecasters nailed it. All the top-line numbers were right in line with consensus estimates. This is apparently the result that the bond market had been positioning for. There was no additional improvement in bonds after the data, but arguably a fair amount of improvement in anticipation of just such a result.  The net effect is that the average top-tier 30yr fixed rate returned precisely in line with the 3-week lows seen last Friday. [thirtyyearmortgagerates] Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-08112026 Tue, 11 Aug 2026 20:30:00 GMT 6a7b87d8473ea504287af8b7 Matthew Graham It ended up being a remarkably uneventful day for mortgage rates. Some lenders were slightly higher than yesterday. Others were roughly unchanged. The difference came down to whether the lender in question raised rates yesterday afternoon. What does this mean? Lenders prefer to set rates once per day around 10am ET. But if the underlying bond market makes a big enough move, lenders can change rates during the day. Bonds lost just enough ground yesterday for some lenders to raise rates. Contrast that to today where virtually every lender maintained the same levels throughout. Tomorrow morning brings the latest release of the Consumer Price Index (CPI). This is one of the most important pieces of monthly economic data as far as rates are concerned. There's no way to know how it will impact rates ahead of time--only that a large deviation from expectations is likely to result in a larger-than-average move higher or lower. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-08102026 Mon, 10 Aug 2026 19:32:00 GMT 6a7a293d506dd3083d6aff0a Matthew Graham As of last Friday, average top-tier mortgage rates hit their lowest levels since July 20th. If they'd managed to drop even 0.01% today, it would have been a new 3-week low.  As it stands, rates moved modestly higher in response to higher oil prices. Throughout the Iran war, oil and rates have had a broadly strong correlation because oil informs inflation expectations and inflation is a key input for the rate market. Even after today's rise, rates remain much closer to the lower end of the range over the past 3 weeks. Logically, any positive developments in the war or diplomacy should result in lower rates. Beyond that, there's separate volatility potential related to inflation reports that come out later this week, but as always, that could be for better or worse depending on the outcome of the reports.  Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/rates