Rates As of Monday morning, rates are up a tick from Friday’s closing: Important notes for understanding and using this information: Any site/chart that advertises rates (like the above) is showing a national average for one very specific loan scenario, as reported...

Mortgage rates bounced hard off the long term lows back in September and had jumped almost a full percent by last week.

Mortgage rates spent the entire month of October moving higher at a fairly quick pace. Some of that had to do with stronger economic data, but at least as much had to do with the bond market (bonds dictate rates) adjusting to election probabilities.

This newsletter strictly avoids politics except in cases where the political realm legitimately intersects with relevant events for housing and rates. Now is clearly one of those times. The discussion that follows contains no opinion or partisan leaning.

Last week's newsletter warned that it was time to start thinking about incredibly high volatility potential due to events in the first few days of November. But as far as interest rates are concerned, the volatility is already here. Rates jumped sharply higher to...

This newsletter series spent 3 straight weeks trying to remind readers that mortgage rates could go higher after the Fed rate cut, and then several more weeks warning about the high stakes jobs report.  We had no way of knowing how the future would play out then,...

It's been frustrating and potentially confusing to see mortgage rates move consistently higher after the Fed's September 18th rate cut, but the Fed has nothing to do with the big rate spike of the past few weeks. The Fed's rate cut wasn't even the reason that rates...

There was a lot riding on Friday's big jobs report with a weak result likely to reinvigorate a move to long-term lows and a strong result likely to push rates higher. It ended up being VERY strong, thus pushing rates higher VERY quickly. The following chart shows...

'Tis the season for things to be something other than what they appear to be, apparently. Lenders are talking about new loan limits, but they haven't officially changed. News stories are saying rates went lower this week, but they're higher. And there's even talk...