2026 Mortgage Rates Forecast According to Experts

Mortgage rates took homebuyers for quite a ride in '25.

Eclipsing 7% early in the year, the 30-year fixed rate sank to 6.17% by late-October according to Freddie Mac.

What does 2026 hold?

Between a record-setting government shutdown, a global trade war, and a continued crunch on supply, predicting mortgage rates is more complex than ever.

We consulted the mortgage industry’s major players as well as front-line loan officers and data experts to evaluate the most likely paths for mortgage rates in 2026.

What the Major Agencies Predict for 2026

As of November 20, 2025, the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage was 6.26%, according to Freddie Mac. Rates for a 15-year mortgage stood at 5.49%. Both rates were near 52-week lows.

Mortgage industry experts are forecasting what amounts to a very slight net change between now and the end of 2026. Most predictions land close to what experts forecasted for the end of 2025.

The average of all agencies' predictions is 6.2%.

Fannie Mae: Fannie Mae economic experts say they expect mortgage rates to dip below 6% by the end of 2026, with the share of refinancing increasing from 26% of new mortgages in 2025 to 35% in 2026.

National Association of Realtors: At NAR, Chief Economist Lawrence Yun predicts mortgage rates will close out 2026 at 6.1%, with home prices rising 4% next year and new-home sales rising 5%.

National Association of Home Builders: Pointing out a slight drop in the 10-year Treasury yield in October and an overall weakening job market, experts at the NAHB are still predicting an increase in sales, at least another cut to the federal funds rate, and a mortgage rate around 6.20% to end the year.

Wells Fargo: The bank’s economic forecast puts rates at 6.20% by the end of 2026.

Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA): Mike Fratantoni, chief economist and senior vice president for research and business development at MBA, said in October that he expects sales to increase amid growing inventory and downward pressure on prices, with the average mortgage rate staying between 6% and 6.5% by the end of next year. MBA projection materials call for a 6.4% 30-year fixed by Q4 2026.

On-the-ground Insights

We also talked to loan officers and analysts handling these changes in real time to get their take on what’s happening to mortgage rates, and what could be coming down the line in 2026.

Forecasting 2026 is harder than normal

Predicting mortgage trends is already a difficult practice, but it’s harder now than ever.

“Everyone expected upper-5% to low-6% rates this year, and that’s not how things ended up,” says Melissa Cohn, regional vice president at William Raveis Mortgage in New York. “This isn’t the first time forecasts have missed the mark. Every year we go in saying, ‘This is the year rates come down,’ and every year something turns the market around.”

That’s even more true for 2026. “With everything happening in the economy, the world, and in Washington, it’s incredibly difficult to make a clear prediction,” she says. “One event can push rates either up or down. That’s why I call this a seesaw market—every factor has a push-me-pull-you effect.”

What’s driving rates

As we’ve seen, Fed rate cuts don’t mean mortgage rates will fall, too.

“Mortgage rates price off the 10-year, not the Fed funds rate,” explains John Walkup, cofounder and partner at analytics firm Urban Digs. “What matters is how markets expect the Fed to behave — not just next meeting, but two or three meetings from now. It’s never just what the Fed does; it’s how the market interprets what’s coming next.”

And usually, the markets have already priced in their expectations, says Kyle McCort, an Ohio-based senior loan originator and branch manager at NFM Lending.

“In the near term, I think there’s more risk of rates going up than going down,” he says. “The Fed doesn’t have enough data to provide good forward guidance because of the shutdown. When Powell said, ‘When you’re driving into fog, you slow down,’ that told me the Fed has no clear runway.”

McCort said he expects inflation to rise once the Fed’s monetary policy of quantitative tightening ends in December. “That doesn’t automatically mean [quantitative easing] starts right away, but it’s the only logical next step,” he says, pointing to the Fed’s policy of injecting more money into the economy. “Historically, easing shows up as inflation down the road. We lived through 8% inflation during the last QE cycle. That’s not an environment for low mortgage rates.”

Falling rates may not benefit buyers

“People say, ‘I want lower rates.’ Well, remember what was happening when rates were at 2–3%? We were in a global pandemic,” McCort points out. “You don’t get that kind of rate without an extraordinary event—and most people didn’t feel comfortable buying in that environment.”

Walkup echoes the idea that falling rates aren’t always a boon. “Not all rate cuts are equal,” he says. “A rate cut because inflation is easing is great. A rate cut because the economy is weakening is not. Yes, mortgage rates might fall in a recession, but who’s buying homes in a recessionary environment?”

Housing trends are hyperlocal

It’s important to remember that macro trends don’t always reflect micro realities, says Walkup. “Housing is hyperlocal. National or even city-wide statistics can set context, but they won’t determine the value of your specific home. Every home has its own market,” he says.

Floridians, for example, may be dealing with a much different market than buyers and sellers in the West or Northeast.

“The market that we have today is very different than the market we had, say, the end of first quarter of 2025, end of 2025,” Cohn says. “In some places in Florida, prices have dropped since the end of the first quarter” – sometimes significantly, in a new, much frostier real estate market. In fact, some of the coldest markets in the U.S. right now are in Florida, where prices have declined sharply while inventory has jumped nearly 40% in some areas.

But even with prices here trending in buyers’ favor, high interest rates and an overall elevated cost of living have 80% of people worried about affordability in Florida, according to a Realtor.com study.

New threats to affordability

Affordability isn’t just a concern in Florida, of course; the pressure is on nationwide.

“Households are getting squeezed,” McCort says. “Credit card delinquencies and auto delinquencies are rising—not catastrophic, but the trend is clear. The top 10% are doing most of the spending. Everyone else feels it.”

Cohn points to the recent government shutdown battle and the fight over Affordable Care Act subsidies, noting that buyers will feel the squeeze from many angles – including rising healthcare costs.

“Health insurance costs are going to put a major dent in the real estate market, especially for middle-income buyers,” she says. “In some cases, people are seeing premiums increase by the equivalent of a mortgage payment. If you can barely cover health costs, you’re not buying a house.”

Why 2026 Matters for Borrowers and the Housing Market

Rapid policy shifts and economic uncertainty gave 2025 an element of nerve-wracking volatility. At least a portion of this volatility stemmed from the new administration’s policy decisions, including tariff implementation and de-implementation.

“It feels like we’re moving through one of the weirdest economic periods in modern history,” says McCort. “No one knows what’s true or what policy will hold. A single tweet can wipe out trillions in market cap. That’s how fragile everything is right now.”

Layered on top of general market uncertainty are a few known factors. First is that the U.S. is still in a housing shortage, with 4.6 months’ of inventory available – higher than last year by 0.4, but still short of the six-month ideal that would provide a more balanced market.

Second is that prices are still climbing, even though they’re moving more slowly than in previous years. The average home price rose 1.4% year over year, according to Redfin data. That puts the median home price at $440,387.

Also climbing: the average age of today’s first-time homebuyers, which reached a record-high of 40 in November 2025, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Taken together, we can see there is a large amount of economic uncertainty paired with an ongoing affordability crisis that (despite proposals like the 50-year mortgage) is stunting any definitive movement in mortgage rates.

Advice for Buyers

If mortgage rates are going to stay relatively stable, moving sideways instead of dramatically up or down, what’s a 2026 homebuyer to do?

Don’t wait

There’s no sense waiting with the housing market (and the economy) as unpredictable as it’s been in 2025. Will rates go up? Will they go down? Without knowing for sure, you’re likely better off making the move now, when you know the variables.

“There's a lot of stuff that can happen in five months,” Walkup says. By waiting, “you're taking your basket of knowns and you're exchanging it for a basket of complete unknowns,” he says. “I would rather buy — or make a plan to buy — in an environment that I know about, where at least I can control some of these things.”

Make the move for your needs

Remember that homebuying is just that: buying a home to live in. It’s not about gambling, optimizing, speculating, or investing; it’s purchasing a place to live.

“People don’t move because of interest rates. They move because life happens,” McCort says. “A 2.75% rate doesn’t matter when you’re expecting your third kid and you’ve got one-and-a-half bathrooms. If we stay around 6% for five years, those locked-in sellers will eventually move,” he says.

Focus on home price, not rates

While it can be tempting to try to time the market and score the lowest interest rate possible, the truth is that a fraction of a percentage point won’t make a giant difference in your monthly payment.

“If you’re upset about a $70 higher mortgage payment when rates move a quarter point, but you’re also buying a $1,000 iPhone every year, you’re focusing on the wrong thing,” McCort says. “Keep last year’s phone and buy the house.”

Cohn points out that it’s generally cheaper to refinance an affordable house than risk waiting for rates to drop — and waiting means losing out on good homes.

“I think that [buyers] need to be focused more on the price of the home that they're buying than the interest rate, as long as they can actually find a way to afford the home,” Cohn says. “While rates remain high, prices are actually more subdued. When interest rates hopefully come down, real estate prices are going to go up, and it's much cheaper to refinance a mortgage than it is to wait to buy a house at a higher price,” she says. “A 5% movement in a house [price] is a lot more than the cost of refinancing that mortgage. If they wait six months, nine months, a year, for rates to come down, that house will likely be sold.”

Explore your mortgage options

The experts we talked to also pointed out that there are many more mortgage options available than the conventional, 30-year fixed. If rates are a concern, both 15-year fixed-rate mortgages and adjustable-rate mortgages typically offer lower interest rates, provided you can swing the payments.

Rate buydowns are another path, Cohn says. “If you are a buyer, you may look for a home where a seller has a temporary buy-down. With a 2-1 buy-down, if the rate today is 6.25%, for the first year, you're making payments of 4.25%, and the second year, 5.25%,” she says.

Non-qualified mortgages (non-QM) are another option. “In this country, there are a lot of people who are newly self-employed, or commission-based gig workers,” Cohn says. A non-QM offers an alternative way of getting people approved, including retirees. “Getting approved is much more important than a rate,” Cohn says. “You can find a rate at 5.5%, but if you don't qualify, you're never going to get it.”

Government loans are another path to approval. “We’re seeing more government loans get accepted because the market is slower,” McCort says. “FHA buyers have a better shot than they did a year ago.”

2026: Return to Sanity

Forecasting the 2026 housing market is a challenge, to say the least.

“As the famous appraiser here in New York City, Jonathan Miller, likes to say, the crystal ball is cracked. It’s got duct tape, it’s clouded,” Walkup quips.

Recent record-low rates may not be coming back anytime soon, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“The real problem that we saw in 2021, early 2022, was that mortgages were essentially free. So why not go out, borrow as much as you can, and buy as much house as you can?” he says. “Everyone had that same idea, and prices squirted up, right out of the ketchup bottle, and splatted all over the ceiling as a giant mess,” he says.

“We're still trying to clean up that mess. Thankfully, the mortgage industry and the banking industry really learned a lot of lessons from the Great Recession. There’s a lot more equity in these homes than there was previously.” Prices are stabilizing or gently sloping downward without entering fire-sale territory. And supply is increasing. “I think the housing industry actually is in a very good place,” Walkup says.

Today’s mid-six interest rates aren’t helping the country’s housing affordability crisis, and rates aren’t expected to change much over the next year. But buyers who are ready to move can still find plenty of silver lining in these clouds.