Mortgage And Refinance Rates, July 7

Today’s mortgage and refinance rates

Average mortgage rates rose appreciably yesterday. They’d started that morning barely moving. But, within an hour of my posting my prediction, they started moving quickly upward.

This morning, mortgage rates today look likely to rise. But remember how things changed yesterday. These daily predictions are fallible.

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.

Up, down, up, down. These often sharp changes in mortgage rates are mostly down to market volatility and rarely indicate a significant change in the trend. So, do your best to let them wash over you.

I still think higher overall rates are more likely than lower ones over the next few weeks. 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 yesterday, were:

• The yield on 10-year Treasury notes rose to 2.95 from 2.83%. (Bad for mortgage rates.) More than any other market, mortgage rates normally tend to follow these particular Treasury bond yields
• Major stock indexes were higher soon after 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 may happen when indexes are lower. But this is an imperfect relationship
• Oil prices rose to $102.97 from $98.37 a barrel. (Bad for mortgage rates*.) Energy prices play a prominent role in creating inflation and also point to future economic activity
• Gold prices fell to $1,745 from $1,763 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 — increased to 28 from 26 out of 100. (Bad 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

*A movement of less than $20 on gold prices or 40 cents on oil ones is a change of 1% or less. So we only count meaningful differences as good or bad for mortgage rates.

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 hold steady. 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?

Yesterday, I quoted a headline from Tuesday that read “Recession Obsession.” The headline yesterday might have said “Inflation Obsession.”

What caused markets to switch their focus to inflation? Well, yesterday saw the publication of the minutes of the last meeting of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy body, the Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC).

Markets always pore over these. And yesterday they read about pessimism over inflation. The Wall Street Journal (paywall) reported:

WASHINGTON—Federal Reserve officials agreed at their meeting last month they would have to raise interest rates faster and to levels high enough to slow economic growth because of the worsening inflation picture.

Worse, ” … several officials have indicated since then that they are prepared to support another such increase at their meeting later this month,” according to the Journal.

Have things changed since that Jun. 15-15 meeting? Perhaps. I’ve been reporting this week on lower commodity prices (yesterday, oil was down below $100 a barrel) and China’s economic slowdown. Both of those could herald a lower inflation rate.

Inflation and the Fed

But, even if those early signs become a reality, it will take months for any benefits to feed through into the inflation rate. And the Fed is showing few signs of wishing to ease up on its anti-inflation measures until it’s seen solid evidence of cooling prices over a sustained period.

So, that’s why mortgage rates rose yesterday. Markets switched their focus back to inflation. And inflation tends to push those rates higher.

Will they switch that focus back to the fear of a recession? Probably. Don’t assume that volatility is going anywhere in a hurry.

There was one piece of good news in those minutes. The Fed made no mention of changing its plans for running down its holdings of mortgage bonds (“mortgage-backed securities”).

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

Recent trends — updated today

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 was a kinder month.

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

The Mortgage Reports receives rates based on selected criteria from multiple lending partners each day. We arrive at an average rate and APR for each loan type to display in our chart. Because we average an array of rates, it gives you a better idea of what you might find in the marketplace. Furthermore, we average rates for the same loan types. For example, FHA fixed with FHA fixed. The end result is a good snapshot of daily rates and how they change over time.