Today’s mortgage and refinance rates 

Average mortgage rates inched lower yesterday. In recent months, that’s been the most common sentence beginning these updates. And conventional loans today start at 3.188% (3.188% APR) for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage. 

Happy Election Day! We’ll have to wait to see if the following days are as happy or if they become mired in a contested outcome. If the latter, rates may go lower.

Find and lock a low rate (Nov 3rd, 2020)

Current mortgage and refinance rates 

Find and lock a low rate (Nov 3rd, 2020)

COVID-19 mortgage updates: Mortgage lenders are changing rates and rules due to COVID-19. To see the latest on how coronavirus could impact your home loan, click here.

Should you lock a mortgage rate today?

Looking at markets first thing, mortgage rates could rise today. But they didn’t follow those markets yesterday. Will they today? More below.

Absent the reasons in “Are mortgage and refinance rates rising or falling?” (below), I’d stand by my opinion that mortgage rates are likely to carry on inching lower, though only slowly and unsteadily. And that those falls will be punctuated by occasional, brief and modest rises.

But events this week (and perhaps further ahead) could change that view and result in appreciably higher rates that might last. Or lower ones, for all anyone knows. Read on for more details.

So, in the absence of better information, my personal recommendations must for now remain:

• LOCK if closing in 7 days
• LOCK if closing in 15 days
• FLOAT if closing in 30 days
• FLOAT if closing in 45 days
• FLOAT if closing in 60 days

But, with so much uncertainty at the moment, your instincts could easily turn out to be as good as mine — or better. So be guided by your gut and your personal tolerance for risk.

Market data affecting today’s mortgage rates 

Here’s the state of play this morning at about 9:50 a.m. (ET). The data, compared with about the same time yesterday morning, were:

• The yield on 10-year Treasurys moved up to 0.89% from 0.84%. (Bad for mortgage rates.) More than any other market, mortgage rates normally tend to follow these particular Treasury bond yields, though less so recently
• Major stock indexes were again sharply higher on opening. (Bad for mortgage rates.) When investors are buying shares they’re often selling bonds, which pushes prices of those down and increases yields and mortgage rates. The opposite happens when indexes are lower
• Oil prices rose to $38.13 from $35.62 a barrel. (Bad for mortgage rates* because energy prices play a large role in creating inflation and also point to future economic activity.) 
• Gold prices rose to $1,906 from $1,892 an ounce. (Neutral for mortgage rates*.) In general, it’s better for rates when gold rises, and worse when gold falls. Gold tends to rise when investors worry about the economy. And worried investors tend to push rates lower

Before the pandemic and the Federal Reserve’s interventions in the mortgage market, you could look at the above figures and make a pretty good guess about what would happen to mortgage rates that day. But that’s no longer the case. The Fed is now a huge player and some days can overwhelm investor sentiment.

So use markets only as a rough guide. They have to be exceptionally strong (rates are likely to rise) or weak (they could fall) to rely on them. Today, they’re looking bad for mortgage rates.

Find and lock a low rate (Nov 3rd, 2020)

Important notes on today’s mortgage rates

Here are some things you need to know:

1. The Fed’s ongoing interventions in the mortgage market (way over $1 trillion) should put continuing downward pressure on these rates. But it can’t work miracles all the time. So expect short-term rises as well as falls. And read “For once, the Fed DOES affect mortgage rates. Here’s why” if you want to understand this aspect of what’s happening
2. Typically, mortgage rates go up when the economy’s doing well and down when it’s in trouble. But there are exceptions. Read How mortgage rates are determined and why you should care
3. Only “top-tier” borrowers (with stellar credit scores, big down payments and very healthy finances) get the ultralow mortgage rates you’ll see advertised
4. Lenders vary. Yours may or may not follow the crowd when it comes to daily rate movements — though they all usually follow the wider trend over time
5. When rate changes are small, some lenders will adjust closing costs and leave their rate cards the same
6. Refinance rates are typically close to those for purchases. But some types of refinances from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are currently appreciably higher following a regulatory change

So there’s a lot going on here. And nobody can claim to know with certainty what’s going to happen to mortgage rates in coming hours, days, weeks or months.

Are mortgage and refinance rates rising or falling?

Today

Today’s election seems to be edging out everything else for investors — even the pandemic. And they’re generally content with what the polls are predicting. They’re likely seeing such an outcome as a fast way to get a generous stimulus package.

But what’s very likely to upset them is a long, sustained court battle over the outcome. Or, worse, any civil unrest. They hate uncertainty. And either of those could see rates fall.

A smooth transition of power might see a bump in those rates. However, focus will eventually switch back to the pandemic. So rises may be relatively brief and moderate.

And there’s a cushion that might keep mortgage rates more steady than other key markets. They’re already higher than they need to be because lenders have been managing their workloads by keeping them artificially high. So only big rises are likely to be reflected in them.

But, with so much uncertainty, you’d have to be braver than us to hazard a guess as to where mortgage rates might be by the end of this week.

Recently

Over the last few months, the overall trend for mortgage rates has clearly been downward. A new all-time low was set early in August and we’ve gotten close to others since. Indeed, Freddie Mac said that a new low was set during each of the weeks ending Oct. 15 and 22. Last Thursday’s report said rates remained “relatively flat” that week.

But not every mortgage expert agrees with Freddie’s figures. In particular, they relate to purchase mortgages alone and ignore refinances. And if you average out across both, rates have been consistently higher than the all-time low since that August record. The gap between the two has been widened by a controversial regulatory change.

Expert mortgage rate forecasts

Looking further ahead, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) each has a team of economists dedicated to monitoring and forecasting what will happen to the economy, the housing sector and mortgage rates.

And here are their current rates forecasts for the last quarter of 2020 (Q4/20) and the first three of 2021 (Q1/21, Q2/21 and Q3/21).

Note that Fannie’s (out on Oct. 19) and the MBA’s (Oct. 21) are updated monthly. However, Freddie’s are now published quarterly. Its latest was released on Oct. 14.

The numbers in the table below are for 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages:

Forecaster	Q4/20	Q1/21	Q2/21	Q3/21
Fannie Mae	2.9%	2.8%	2.8%	2.8%
Freddie Mac	3.0%	3.0%	3.0%	3.0%
MBA	3.0%	3.1%	3.1%	3.2%

So predictions vary considerably. You pays yer money …

Find your lowest rate today

The pandemic — together with a surge in home sales and mortgage and refinance applications — has created some turmoil in the home loans industry.

And that’s making it harder for some borrowers to find the sorts of mortgages they need. So be prepared to shop around even more widely than usual.

But, of course, comparison shopping for a loan is always important. As federal regulator the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says:

Shopping around for your mortgage has the potential to lead to real savings. It may not sound like much, but saving even a quarter of a point in interest on your mortgage saves you thousands of dollars over the life of your loan.

Verify your new rate (Nov 3rd, 2020)

Mortgage rate methodology