The average 30-year fixed rate mortgage was 6.33% yesterday, an increase of 0.05% since the day before. The 15-year fixed mortgage rate stood at 5.42%, up by 0.02%. The 30-year FHA mortgage averaged 5.59% yesterday, having risen by 0.02. Meanwhile, the 30-year jumbo mortgage rate was 6.73%, reflecting an increase of 0.04%.
The bigger picture
On Wednesday night, President Donald Trump signed into law a bill that ended the record-long government shutdown. As we expected, that resulted in mortgage rates nudging modestly higher yesterday.
Those rates fell during the shutdown in response to the economic damage it was doing. So, they rose when the pain ended.
The future for mortgage rates is even cloudier than normal. Much depends on the official data that will be released in the coming weeks. Normally, bad economic news sends those rates lower, while good news pushes them upward.
Federal Reserve likely contributed to the rise
Mortgage rates' rise yesterday might have been exacerbated by speculation over the Federal Reserve's future rate policy. In particular, markets are increasingly skeptical that the Fed will cut general interest rates, as previously expected, on Dec. 10.
On Wednesday, we reported that the CME FedWatch tool put the odds of such a cut at 62.9%. But yesterday, those odds fell to 49.6%, down from a month ago when they were 95.5%.
In other words, judging by trades in the Fed funds futures market, a small majority of investors are now expecting general interest rates to be unchanged on Dec. 10. That shift in sentiment would normally push mortgage rates higher.
Mortgage Rate Trends: Past 90 Days
Purchase Rates
| Loan Type | Rate | APR | Daily Change | Monthly Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30-Year Fixed | 6.33% | 6.36% | +0.05% | +0.05% |
| 15-Year Fixed | 5.42% | 5.47% | +0.02% | +0.08% |
| 30-Year Fixed FHA | 5.59% | 6.8% | +0.02% | -0.04% |
| 30-Year Fixed VA | 5.66% | 5.81% | +0.02% | -0.07% |
| 30-Year Fixed USDA | 5.63% | 5.77% | +0.08% | -0.12% |
| 30-Year Fixed Jumbo | 6.73% | 6.75% | +0.04% | +0.1% |
| 5/6 Year ARM | 6.16% | 6.19% | -0.13% | -0.08% |
Refinance Rates
| Loan Type | Rate | APR | Daily Change | Monthly Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30-Year Fixed | 6.41% | 6.44% | +0.02% | +0.06% |
| 15-Year Fixed | 5.41% | 5.45% | +0.01% | +0.08% |
| 30-Year Fixed FHA | 5.56% | 6.77% | +0.02% | -0.02% |
| 30-Year Fixed VA | 5.69% | 5.83% | +0.02% | -0.05% |
| 5/6 Year ARM | 6.19% | 6.22% | -0.19% | -0.1% |
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 employment, inflation, tariffs and deficit funding are especially influential at the moment.
With a re-opening underway, we can anticipate the publication of official reports to slowly return to normal. Had the government shutdown been brief, we could have expected a flood of official economic reports on reopening. But the length of the hiatus means that it is no longer the case. Data won't have been collected — let alone compiled and prepared for publication — during the shutdown. So, delayed or even canceled reports are inevitable.
"The White House said Wednesday it was unlikely that key federal inflation and labor reports impacted by the government shutdown would be
released, reported NBC News. " ... Economists had already expected that October's CPI [consumer price index] data on inflation might not be released because federal workers who would have collected the data if the government had been open were not deployed after Oct. 1."
Mortgage rates today
There are no economic reports on today's MarketWatch economic calendar.
The government departments that supply economic data are yet to provide new timetables for the release of data. So, next week's calendar could bring many or few reports.
