Mortgage rates began the week in decent shape, but moved higher somewhat abruptly yesterday. Context is important though. The smallest increment of adjustment for mortgages is typically 0.125%, and we haven't seen a move that big since early November. In fact, the overall range in 30yr fixed rates hasn't even been 0.125% during that time!
In other words, we're only able to say "highest rates in a month" because they finally trickled to just slightly higher levels. On that note, we might as well prepare for the next technicality. Specifically, if things get just a bit worse, we'll soon be able to say "highest rates in 9 months," even though they won't be too terribly different from today's.
Click on graph for larger image.This is a graph from Mortgage News Daily (MND) showing 30-year fixed rates from three sources (MND, MBA, Freddie Mac) since 2010.
The 30-year fixed rate for top tier scenarios was 3.27% yesterday, up from 3.26% on Wednesday. This is still historically very low.
If rates rise to 3.30% that will be highest since March 2021. And 3.46% would be the highest since rates spiked briefly at the beginning of the pandemic.
Go to MND and you can adjust the graph for different time periods.