Today’s mortgage and refinance rates 

Average mortgage rates fell again yesterday, though only moderately. And those rates are roughly back to where they were last Thursday and at the end of June.

So far this morning, mortgage rates today look likely to rise, perhaps sharply. That follows worse-than-expected inflation figures published at 8:30 a.m. (ET). As always, things might change later in the day, though that was looking unlikely when we published.

Current mortgage and refinance rates 

Should you lock a mortgage rate today?

Don’t lock on a day when mortgage rates look set to fall. My recommendations (below) are intended to give longer-term suggestions about the overall direction of those rates. So, they don’t change daily to reflect fleeting sentiments in volatile markets.

As I mentioned above, mortgage rates today are roughly back to where they were on Jun. 30. In other words, and despite all the dramatic rises and falls, those rates are barely moving over the longer term. Still, after all those changes have canceled each other out, the underlying trend has been for slowly rising rates.

So, my personal rate lock recommendations for the longer term must remain:

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

>Related: 7 Tips to get the best refinance rate

Market data affecting today’s mortgage rates 

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

• The yield on 10-year Treasury notes climbed to 3.03% from 2.91%. (Very bad for mortgage rates.) More than any other market, mortgage rates normally tend to follow these particular Treasury bond yields
• Major stock indexes were lower soon after opening. (Good 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 may happen when indexes are lower. But this is an imperfect relationship
• Oil prices tumbled to $96.47 from $99.45 a barrel. (Good for mortgage rates*.) Energy prices play a prominent role in creating inflation and also point to future economic activity 
• Gold prices decreased to $1,725 from $1,728 an ounce. (Neutral for mortgage rates*.) It is generally 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
• CNN Business Fear & Greed index — fell to 23 from 29 out of 100. (Good for mortgage rates.) “Greedy” investors push bond prices down (and interest rates up) as they leave the bond market and move into stocks, while “fearful” investors do the opposite. So lower readings are better than higher ones

Caveats about markets and rates

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. We still make daily calls. And are usually right. But our record for accuracy won’t achieve its former high levels until things settle down.

So use markets only as a rough guide. Because they have to be exceptionally strong or weak to rely on them. But, with that caveat, mortgage rates today look likely to rise. However, be aware that “intraday swings” (when rates change direction during the day) are a common feature right now.

Important notes on today’s mortgage rates

Here are some things you need to know:

1. 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‘
2. Only “top-tier” borrowers (with stellar credit scores, big down payments and very healthy finances) get the ultralow mortgage rates you’ll see advertised
3. Lenders vary. Yours may or may not follow the crowd when it comes to daily rate movements — though they all usually follow the broader trend over time
4. When daily rate changes are small, some lenders will adjust closing costs and leave their rate cards the same
5. Refinance rates are typically close to those for purchases.

A lot is going on at the moment. And nobody can claim to know with certainty what will happen to mortgage rates in the coming hours, days, weeks or months.

Are mortgage and refinance rates rising or falling?

How important are this morning’s inflation figures? Well, there’s a clue in the fact some joker thought it worth compiling and circulating a fake “leaked” version yesterday.

In the event, the real figures for the consumer price index in June were appreciably worse than expected. Hours before publication, The Wall Street Journal reported, “The U.S. consumer-price index for June is expected to rise 1.1% from one month earlier and 8.8% from one year earlier. Excluding food and energy, the CPI is forecast to increase 0.5% and 5.7%. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics later revealed the real figures: The main index “rose 1.3 percent, seasonally adjusted, and rose 9.1 percent over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted. The index for all items less food and energy increased 0.7 percent in June (SA); up 5.9 percent over the year (NSA).”

That’s quite a gap between expectations and reality. And regular readers can recall my mantra in their sleep: Bad news on inflation tends to push mortgage rates higher while bad news on the wider economy tends to push them lower.

Caveats

You can already see that markets are reacting badly, pushing mortgage rates higher. However, there are two caveats:

1. Sometimes markets break those rules. They think (or think they’re thinking) several moves ahead in this game. And that means they can act counterintuitively
2. It can take markets a while to fully digest new data. So, again only sometimes, they react one way to a new report only to turn tail and rush the other way later in the day

Whether that second point applies today is anyone’s guess. But there’s another, less famous but still important inflation report due out tomorrow. And retail sales numbers should arrive on Friday. So there’s plenty of scope for volatility among mortgage rates for some time to come.

Read the weekend edition of this daily article for more background.

Recent trends

Over much of 2020, the overall trend for mortgage rates was clearly downward. And a new, weekly all-time low was set on 16 occasions that year, according to Freddie Mac.

The most recent weekly record low occurred on Jan. 7, 2021, when it stood at 2.65% for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages.

Rates then bumbled along, moving little for the following eight or nine months. But they began rising noticeably that September. Unfortunately, they’ve been mostly shooting up since the start of 2022, although May and June were kinder months.

Freddie’s Jul. 7 report puts that same weekly average for 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages at 5.3% (with 0.8 fees and points), down from the previous week’s 5.70%. However, that survey will not have taken into account the appreciable rise on Jul. 6.

Note that Freddie expects you to buy discount points (“with 0.8 fees and points”) on closing that earn you a lower rate. If you don’t do that, your rate would be closer to the ones we and others quote.

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 rate forecasts for the remaining three quarters of 2022 (Q2/22, Q3/22, Q4/22) and the first quarter of next year (Q1/23).

The numbers in the table below are for 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages. Fannie’s were published on Jun. 16, and the MBA’s on Jun. 10. Freddie’s were released on Apr. 18. But it now updates its figures only quarterly, so they’re already looking stale.

Of course, given so many unknowables, the whole current crop of forecasts might be even more speculative than usual. Recent events certainly make them look that way.

Find your lowest rate today

You should comparison shop widely, no matter what sort of mortgage you want. 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.”

Mortgage rate methodology