The average 30-year fixed rate mortgage is 6.57% today, a decrease of 0.01% since yesterday. The 15-year fixed mortgage rate stands at 5.74%, down by 0.01%. The 30-year FHA mortgage now averages 5.93%, having dropped by 0.03. Meanwhile, the 30-year jumbo mortgage rate is 6.79%, reflecting a decrease of 0.02%.
The bigger picture
Mortgage rates inched lower yesterday. And some might say we dodged a bullet as events in the Middle East at one point looked likely to send them higher.
The U.S. said Iran had downed one of its Apache helicopters, and yesterday evening launched retaliatory strikes. Still, Centcom, which manages military operations in the Middle East, said: "The mission is a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression." And earlier in the day, the president had said the Strait of Hormuz would "open up immediately upon signing [an accord], which could be in two or three days."
Absent a signed accord or a marked escalation in the conflict, there's a good chance this morning's May consumer price index (CPI) could overshadow even events in the Middle East. However, whether it does so will depend on how wide the gap is between today's actual numbers and what markets are expecting.Scroll on down for details of today's economic reports and how they might affect mortgage rates.
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Mortgage Rate Trends: Past 90 Days
Purchase Rates
| Loan Type | Rate | APR | Daily Change | Monthly Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30-Year Fixed | 6.57% | 6.6% | -0.01% | +0.17% |
| 15-Year Fixed | 5.74% | 5.8% | -0.01% | +0.2% |
| 30-Year Fixed FHA | 5.93% | 7.14% | -0.03% | +0.2% |
| 30-Year Fixed VA | 6.08% | 6.23% | +-0% | +0.23% |
| 30-Year Fixed USDA | 6% | 6.16% | -0.01% | +0.29% |
| 30-Year Fixed Jumbo | 6.79% | 6.81% | -0.02% | +0.11% |
| 5/6 Year ARM | 6.13% | 6.19% | -0.04% | +0.13% |
Refinance Rates
| Loan Type | Rate | APR | Daily Change | Monthly Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30-Year Fixed | 6.62% | 6.65% | -0.01% | +0.16% |
| 15-Year Fixed | 5.73% | 5.78% | -0.01% | +0.21% |
| 30-Year Fixed FHA | 5.93% | 7.14% | -0.03% | +0.19% |
| 30-Year Fixed VA | 6.08% | 6.23% | +-0% | +0.23% |
| 5/6 Year ARM | 6.24% | 6.29% | -0.17% | +0.04% |
What's 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 the war, employment, inflation, tariffs, and deficit funding are especially influential at the moment.
The Fed
April's price indices (the CPI, PPI, IPI and PCE) tend to lend weight to pessimistic arguments about future inflation rates. The first of the May inflation reports is due today.
Those reports landed well after the last meeting of the Federal Reserve's rate-setting committee. Minutes of that meeting were published on May 20 and included the following:
"Almost all participants noted that there was a risk that the conflict in the Middle East could persist for an extended period or that, even after the conflict ended, the prices of oil and other commodities could remain elevated for longer than expected. In such scenarios, these participants expected continued upward pressure on inflation arising from supply chain disruptions, high energy prices, or the pass-through of higher input costs to other prices. The vast majority of participants noted an increased risk that inflation would take longer to return to the Committee’s 2 percent objective than they had previously expected."
Bottom line: "A majority of participants highlighted ... that some policy firming would likely become appropriate if inflation were to continue to run persistently above 2 percent." Policy firming is Fedspeak for a rate hike.
Bond markets vs. stock markets
Mortgage rates are largely dictated by yields on a type of bond, the mortgage-backed security (MBS). So, we focus on bond markets.
On May 7, The New York Times explored why stock markets and bond markets have been behaving so differently from each other since the start of the conflict in the Middle East.
Investors in stocks have been wagering that U.S. companies will continue to generate large profits during the conflict. And the stock market typically cares only about whether dividends and company values will continue to rise.
"But the bond market is another matter," said The Times. "Bond traders have maintained a much sharper focus on risk. Yields remain correlated with shifts in the price of oil. As oil prices have spiked and inflation has risen, yields have risen and bond prices, which move in the opposite direction, have fallen."
Comerica Bank's weekly preview
On Monday, Comerica Bank published its weekly preview:
"Headline CPI is expected to top 4% year-over-year in the May release, reaching a three-year high on last month’s rise in gasoline prices. Core CPI should run cooler, near 3% year-over-year. Prices rose faster than average hourly earnings in May, eroding consumers’ purchasing power. The PPI likewise registered another outsize increase and outpaced the CPI, reflecting the larger shares of petroleum products, metals, and shipping costs in the producer price basket.
"Consumer inflation expectations are likely to tick higher in the New York Fed’s May survey, weighing on views of the economy and job market. But the University of Michigan’s more timely read on consumer sentiment for early June will likely edge up from May’s record low, helped by lower gasoline prices over the last two weeks and higher stock prices."
Comerica's predictions often differ from market expectations, which are a consensus of a wider pool of analysts' forecasts.
Mortgage rates today
There are two economic reports on today's MarketWatch economic calendar. However, this morning's May consumer price index (CPI) is potentially by far the more important.
Right now, markets generally (and the MBS one that determines mortgage rates in particular) are highly sensitive to inflation data. And a wide gap between the figures published this morning and the ones expected by markets could generate real volatility.
Like all price indices, the CPI has four headline figures. However, MarketWatch is now publishing market expectations for only three of them.
Two are year-over-year (YOY) numbers, which cover the period between Jun. 1, 2025, and May 31, 2026. And the third measures price changes only in the reporting month, which in this case is May.
One of the YOY figures measures all price changes included in the CPI survey, and the other tracks the same, but excluding food and energy prices. The latter is called "core" CPI, and is likely to be lower than the vanilla CPI numbers because much recent inflation has been driven by higher gas (aka energy) prices.
Here are market expectations for this morning's three headline figures:
- May CPI — Markets expect prices to have risen by 0.5%, a little slower than April's 0.6%
- YOY CPI — Markets expect prices to have risen by 4.2% over the previous 12 months, much faster than April's 3.8%
- YOY core CPI — Markets expect core prices to have risen by 2.9% over the previous 12 months, a little faster than April's 2.8%
With inflation data, lower-than-expected numbers are pretty much always better for mortgage rates than higher-than-expected ones, all other things being equal. When numbers come in as expected, mortgage rates rarely move far.
Today's other economic report is the monthly U.S. Treasury balance for May. There are no forecasts for that.
The CPI's baby brother, the producer price index (PPI), is scheduled for tomorrow.
