The average 30-year fixed rate mortgage is 6.61% today, an increase of 0.03% since yesterday. The 15-year fixed mortgage rate stands at 5.58%, the same as one day ago. The 30-year FHA mortgage now averages 5.87%, having dropped by 0.12. Meanwhile, the 30-year jumbo mortgage rate is 6.95%, reflecting an increase of 0.02%.
The bigger picture
Yesterday's passage of the "One Big Beautiful Bill" (that's its official title, which can be abbreviated to OBBB) through the Senate was a nail-biter. Senators pulled an all-nighter and still ended up with a 50-50 split. The tie was broken by the chamber's speaker, who is Vice President J.D. Vance.
The Wall Street Journal takes up the story: "The focus now shifts to the House, where the Senate bill has irritated multiple factions of Republicans in a chamber they control 220-212. Moderates worry about the Medicaid cuts affecting hospitals and patients in their districts.
"Others complain that the Senate violated a House framework designed to keep the difference between tax cuts and spending cuts at or below $2.5 trillion. Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) has just three days to meet Trump’s July 4 deadline, and House members are only seeing the final Senate version Tuesday. There would be no real consequences from missing the July 4 deadline that Trump set, but any changes would require another Senate vote."
How might the OBBB affect mortgage rates?
Markets surprisingly often react to stimuli in seemingly counterintuitive ways. But here's what we would expect to happen, should the bill pass the House and be signed by the president.
The current version of the OBBB includes an increase in the debt ceiling of $5 trillion. And the bill itself is set to add a minimum of $3.3 trillion to the already obese national debt over the coming decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Government borrowing is carried out through the auctioning of Treasury bonds, notes and bills. They're all types of bonds, and the difference between them is only their term, meaning duration.
Many economists expect that the additional supply of those bonds will cause their prices to fall because, given constant demand, a greater supply of something pretty much inevitably leads to lower prices (See Econ. 101: Supply and Demand). Unfortunately, it's a mathematical inevitability with bonds that lower prices mean higher yields, aka interest rates.
Mortgage rates are largely determined by yields on a type of bond called a mortgage-backed security (MBS). And MBSs compete directly with Treasury bonds. Indeed, it's widely noted that mortgage rates typically shadow the yield on 10-year Treasury notes.
We won't know when markets will react to the OBBB's extra debt burden. It might not be until demand at Treasury auctions begins to fall behind supply, assuming it does. Or it might be sooner. But we fear that there's a high probability, once the law is enacted, that it will exert some upward pressure on mortgage rates.
Mortgage Rate Trends: Past 90 Days
Purchase Rates
| Loan Type | Rate | APR | Daily Change | Monthly Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30-Year Fixed | 6.61% | 6.64% | +0.03% | -0.26% |
| 15-Year Fixed | 5.58% | 5.62% | +0% | -0.28% |
| 30-Year Fixed FHA | 5.87% | 7.07% | -0.12% | -0.31% |
| 30-Year Fixed VA | 5.97% | 6.12% | -0.09% | -0.36% |
| 30-Year Fixed USDA | 5.88% | 6.02% | -0.21% | -0.26% |
| 30-Year Fixed Jumbo | 6.95% | 6.96% | +0.02% | -0.31% |
| 5/6 Year ARM | 6.52% | 6.56% | +0.01% | -0.32% |
Refinance Rates
| Loan Type | Rate | APR | Daily Change | Monthly Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30-Year Fixed | 6.67% | 6.69% | +0.02% | -0.26% |
| 15-Year Fixed | 5.58% | 5.63% | +0.01% | -0.27% |
| 30-Year Fixed FHA | 5.84% | 7.05% | -0.12% | -0.32% |
| 30-Year Fixed VA | 5.99% | 6.13% | -0.11% | -0.41% |
| 5/6 Year ARM | 6.58% | 6.61% | +0.01% | -0.15% |
Coming up
Although economic reports are usually the main drivers of changes to mortgage rates, they're not the only ones. The general mood in markets and economically consequential news can also affect those rates. News items concerning tariffs and deficits are especially influential at the moment.
Here's Comerica Bank's take on the economic reports due later this week:
"Employment growth likely slowed to a modest pace in June. The unemployment rate likely held steady, but the labor force participation rate probably edged lower from May. Lower demand for labor probably translated into modest increases in wages and a slightly shorter
workweek."
Mortgage rates today
There's only one report on the MarketWatch economic calendar today, and that's the June ADP employment report. This is nothing like as important as Thursday's official employment situation report, aka the jobs report. However, sometimes markets regard it as a bellwether or indicator of what's to come. It measures only private-sector jobs.
Markets are expecting this morning's report to show that 100,000 new private-sector jobs were created in June. That's way up from May's 37,000. However, few expect tomorrow's jobs report to show anything like such a large increase.
With most reports, higher-than-expected numbers tend to push mortgage rates upward, while lower-than-expected ones often exert downward pressure. We'll be surprised if anything other than real surprises in today's reports affects those rates.
Strap in for tomorrow's jobs report. We'll publish this daily column later than usual that day, so we can bring you the report's actual figures.
