This was the biggest week for mortgage rates in more than a year. Freddie Mac's weekly survey puts the average 30 year fixed rate at 6.95 percent, up from 6.76 percent last week. That is a rise of 0.19 percentage points in seven days, the second largest one week move since the start of 2025. It is also the highest weekly reading since January 2025. The 15 year average rose to 6.26 percent from 6.09 percent. A year ago the 30 year average was 6.26 percent, so rates are about 0.69 percentage points higher than they were last September. Every rate named here is a published national average or benchmark from the dated sources on this page. None of them is an offer, a quote, or a rate anyone is being offered.
Two things happened. First, the 10 year Treasury, a government bond yield that mortgage rates tend to follow, reached 5.01 percent on Wednesday September 16. It had not been at or above 5 percent since July 2007. Second, the Federal Reserve raised its own rate that same day by a quarter point, to a range of 3.75 to 4.00 percent. It was the Fed's first increase since 2023, and the vote was unanimous at 12 to 0.
A note on two numbers you will see below. Twelve officials vote on the rate, and that is the 12 to 0 vote. A wider group of eighteen submits the forecasts. That is why both numbers appear on this page.
Those two events do different jobs, and it is worth keeping them apart. The Fed's move directly raises short term rates. The prime rate, the rate most large banks post and the one most home equity lines of credit are built from, went to 7.00 percent today. The Fed does not set mortgage rates. Mortgage rates track the 10 year Treasury, and the 10 year had already been climbing all week before the Fed met.
Fewer people applied for mortgages. Total applications fell 4.1 percent for the week, applications to buy a home fell 1 percent, and refinance applications fell 9 percent, all after adjusting for normal seasonal swings and the Labor Day holiday.
What to do this week if you own a home or are buying one
If you have a home equity line of credit with a balance on it, this is your week to look at it. The prime rate rose to 7.00 percent today. Most lines of credit are priced from prime, so your rate is likely going up at your next billing cycle.
Pull out your most recent statement and find two things. Your current rate, and the amount your lender adds on top of prime. Then call your lender and ask one question. Does my line have an option to convert some or all of the balance to a fixed rate, and what would that cost? Many lines do. Some do not. Ask rather than guess, and ask before you have decided anything, because the answer is free.
If you have applied for a mortgage, have not locked your rate, and close in the next few weeks, call your loan officer today. Locking means the lender agrees to hold your rate for a set number of days while your loan closes. The average rate went from 6.76 percent to 6.95 percent in one week.
The Fed also published its officials' own forecasts on Wednesday. The middle forecast points to one more increase before the end of the year. Not one of the eighteen expects a lower rate by then. That is a forecast, not a promise, and forecasts have been wrong before. But it does mean the people setting that rate currently expect to go up rather than down. Ask what it would cost to lock today, and ask in dollars what it would cost to extend the lock if your closing slips.
If you are only shopping, do not use 6.95 percent as your number. It is a national average for borrowers with excellent credit, 20 percent down, and a conventional loan of standard size, meaning one not backed by a government program and inside the usual size limit. Your own rate depends on your credit, your down payment, the size of your loan, and the property. Here is the useful exercise. Take your own loan amount and run it in the mortgage payment calculator at 6.76 percent, then again at 6.95 percent. The difference between those two is what a move of that size looks like on a loan your size. It is usually smaller each month and larger over the life of the loan than people expect.
One piece of good news underneath all of this. Homeowners with a mortgage hold about $11.7 trillion in equity they could borrow against. That is roughly 1 percent more than a year ago. That is the national total though, and it says nothing about any one house. Your own equity depends on what your home is worth and what you still owe. None of this is a reason to borrow. It is a reason not to panic.
Every rate named here is a published national average or benchmark from the dated sources on this page. None of them is an offer, a quote, or a rate anyone is being offered.
The week in rates
Source Freddie Mac PMMS national averages, Sep 17 2026, and the 10 year Treasury constant maturity via FRED, series DGS10, Sep 16 2026, the most recent value published. These are published national benchmark and average rates from the sources named above. They are not an offer, not a quote, and not a rate anyone is being offered by anyone, including me.
The 30 and 15 year numbers come from Freddie Mac's weekly survey, which averages the rates on home purchase applications that lenders across the country submit to Freddie Mac. The survey looks at one kind of borrower. That borrower is buying a home with 20 percent down and excellent credit. The loan is not backed by a government program such as FHA or VA, and it is within the standard loan size limit. Your own rate depends on your credit, your down payment, the size of your loan and more. Use these as a read on the market, not as the rate you should expect.
The 10 year Treasury yield is the return investors get on 10 year US government bonds. Mortgage rates tend to rise and fall with it, which is why it is worth watching.
The 10 year Treasury was at 5.01 percent on Wednesday September 16, up from 4.83 percent a week earlier. It first touched 5.00 percent the day before. Those are the first readings at or above 5 percent since July 2007, more than nineteen years ago. It rose in every trading session from September 9 to September 16, going from 4.83 to 5.01. This is a daily yield published by the Treasury rather than a closing price.
The prime rate, which home equity lines follow
Source Bank prime loan rate, moved to 7.00 percent effective September 17 2026 following the Federal Reserve decision of September 16 2026, per announcements from major US banks. FRED series DPRIME last posted 6.75 percent on September 15 2026 and had not yet published the new value when this brief went out. These are published national benchmark and average rates from the sources named above. They are not an offer, not a quote, and not a rate anyone is being offered by anyone, including me.
The prime rate went from 6.75 percent to 7.00 percent today, September 17. That is the biggest practical change in this brief for anyone who already owns a home.
Here is why it moved. The Federal Reserve raised its own rate on Wednesday. The prime rate is the rate most large US banks post, and it follows the Fed almost immediately. Major US banks announced the move to 7.00 percent within a day.
Most home equity lines of credit are priced at prime plus an amount the lender adds. So when prime rises 0.25 percentage points, most line of credit rates rise by the same amount, usually starting at your next billing cycle. If you have a line of credit with a balance on it, your payment is likely going up. Check your next statement rather than assuming.
Three things can change that. A line with a minimum rate already above the new level may not move. A line with a cap on how far its rate can rise may move less. And a line you have already converted to a fixed rate does not move at all.
A fixed rate home equity loan you already have does not change. That is the whole point of a fixed rate. The same is true of your first mortgage if it is fixed.
I do not publish an average rate for home equity loans or lines of credit. Each lender prices them differently, and published averages disagree widely depending on the borrower they assume. Prime is different. It is one published benchmark, the same everywhere. The amount your lender adds on top of it still varies, and the only honest way to know your own number is to have a lender work it up on your actual loan.
Every rate named here is a published national average or benchmark from the dated sources on this page. None of them is an offer, a quote, or a rate anyone is being offered.
Who applied for mortgages
The Mortgage Bankers Association tracks mortgage applications every week through a survey of lenders. Most of these numbers are shown after adjusting for normal seasonal swings, like slower holiday weeks. That makes one week fairer to compare with the next.
All mortgage applications were down 4.1 percent for the week after adjusting for normal seasonal swings and for the Labor Day holiday, and down 15 percent before those adjustments. Adjustable rate loans, where the rate can change after an opening period, were 8.4 percent of applications. The average rate on these applications for a 30 year fixed loan within the standard size limit was 6.97 percent, which the Mortgage Bankers Association called the highest since May 2025. That comes from a different survey than Freddie Mac's, covering a different week, and measured a different way. It is the average rate on applications taken in the week ending September 11, so it belongs next to Freddie Mac's 6.76 percent from that same week, not next to the 6.95 percent above. Do not read 6.97 against 6.95 and conclude rates eased.
Applications to buy a home were down 1 percent for the week after adjusting for normal seasonal swings and the Labor Day holiday. Before those adjustments they fell 13 percent for the week, and they were 19 percent below the same week in 2025. A large part of that 19 percent is the calendar rather than buyers vanishing. This year's week contained Labor Day and last year's did not, so this year had four business days against last year's five. Applications do not move in step with business days, so nobody can say how much of the drop the holiday explains. Last week's brief said this drop was coming for exactly that reason. The 1 percent adjusted figure is the one to read.
Applications to refinance were down 9 percent for the week and 65 percent below the same week a year ago. That year ago comparison is against an unusually busy week. In mid September 2025 the average 30 year rate was 6.35 percent and falling, which set off a wave of refinancing. This year's week also contained Labor Day and last year's did not, which pushes the same comparison further down. Comparing today against a boom makes today look worse than it is, though the direction is real. Refinances made up 39.4 percent of all applications, down from 40.9 percent.
Source MBA Weekly Applications Survey, week ending Sep 11 2026, released Sep 16 2026, week over week figures seasonally adjusted and adjusted for the Labor Day holiday unless stated otherwise. The refinance share and the adjustable rate share are shares of total applications and are not seasonally adjusted, so they will not reconcile arithmetically with the adjusted changes, as publicly reported. Any rate or share named in this section is a published national average of applications already taken. These are published national benchmark and average rates from the sources named above. They are not an offer, not a quote, and not a rate anyone is being offered by anyone, including me.
How households are doing
These numbers change slowly. They show how much equity, debt and savings American households have, which shapes what options make sense for a homeowner. Each one shows its own date because they are updated on different schedules.
$11.7 trillion in home equity to borrow against, up about 1 percent from a year earlier
Equity is what a home is worth minus what is still owed on it. Homeowners with a mortgage hold $18 trillion of it in total, up from $17.8 trillion a year earlier. ICE, which tracks mortgage data, counts $11.7 trillion of that as the part homeowners could borrow and still keep 20 percent of their home's value as equity. A year earlier it was $11.6 trillion. So there is a little more to borrow against in total than a year ago. About 47.5 million homeowners with a mortgage have equity they could borrow against, roughly the same number as a year earlier. It is not spread evenly, so your own home's equity depends on its value and what you owe.
ICE Mortgage Monitor, August 2026 and August 2025, as of Q2 2026, compared with Q2 2025
Two thirds of the main mortgages people already have carry a rate under 5 percent
Of the main mortgages people already have, not counting home equity loans or other second loans, 66.7 percent carry a rate under 5 percent and 49.9 percent are under 4 percent. About 22 percent, a little more than 1 in 5, carry a rate of 6 percent or higher.
Federal Housing Finance Agency, National Mortgage Database, as of the first quarter of 2026, released June 26 2026, the latest available as of September 17 2026
Homeowners insurance is 9.6 percent of the average monthly mortgage payment
Insurance costs rose 8.7 percent over the past year. That is still an increase, but a slower one: the yearly increase was 11.4 percent at the start of 2026 and peaked at 15.1 percent at the end of 2024, and the 1.8 percent rise in the second quarter was the smallest since ICE started tracking it. Homeowners who shopped and switched insurers cut their premiums 6.6 percent, a record, while those who stayed with their insurer paid 10.4 percent more, though that is a gap between two groups that are not alike, not what any one homeowner will get. Insurance ranges from 24.3 percent of the payment in New Orleans to 4.3 percent in San Jose.
ICE Mortgage Monitor, September 2026, as of September 2026 report, released Sep 10 2026, figures as of the second quarter of 2026
$1.26 trillion in credit card balances nationwide
This counts every card balance, including people who pay theirs off in full each month, so not all of it is being charged interest.
New York Fed Household Debt and Credit Report, Q2 2026, as of Q2 2026, released Aug 11 2026
20.94 percent average credit card interest rate
The average across all commercial bank credit card accounts, about three times the average 30 year mortgage rate. The real gap is smaller for someone thinking about using home equity to pay off cards, because a second mortgage usually carries a higher rate than a first mortgage.
Federal Reserve G.19, FRED series TERMCBCCALLNS, as of May 2026
$8,000 is the typical balance in household checking and savings
This is the median, meaning the household in the middle, across checking, savings and money market accounts for households that have them. The average is $62,410, much higher, because a small number of very large balances pull it up.
Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, as of 2022 survey, the last full survey released
$155,800 average 401k balance, a record
The average across 401k plans Fidelity administers, up 13.1 percent from a year earlier. More people are also taking money out: 3 percent of participants took a hardship withdrawal, meaning they took money out early because of a serious financial need, up from 2.6 percent a year ago. And 19.5 percent have a loan against their 401k.
Fidelity Q2 2026 Retirement Analysis, as of Q2 2026, reported Sep 3 2026
$459 billion owed on home equity lines of credit
Money homeowners have borrowed against their equity with a line of credit, a second loan that leaves their main mortgage in place.
New York Fed Household Debt and Credit Report, Q2 2026, as of Q2 2026
54 percent of the equity homeowners took out came through a second loan
A second loan, like a home equity loan or line of credit, sits behind the main mortgage. More of the cash homeowners are taking out is coming this way than through replacing their mortgage with a bigger one.
ICE Mortgage Monitor, June 2026 edition, released Jun 8 2026, as of Q1 2026, the latest withdrawal share published as of September 17 2026
Every figure above is a published national aggregate from the source named beside it. Any rate shown here, including the credit card average, is a national average and not an offer, a quote, or a rate anyone is being offered.
For loan officers
This part is written for loan officers. If you own a home or are buying one, it is still worth reading, because it shows the kind of conversation a good loan officer should be having with you.
Prime went to 7.00 today, so call every client with a home equity line of credit before their next statement does it for you
This is the most time sensitive call on your desk this week.
The Federal Reserve raised its rate a quarter point on Wednesday. Major US banks moved prime from 6.75 to 7.00 percent effective today. Most home equity lines of credit are priced at prime plus a margin, so most of your line of credit clients will see their rate rise about 0.25 percentage points at their next billing cycle, without anyone telling them first.
You want to be the person who told them. The call is short. Their rate is going up, here is roughly when they will see it, and here are their options. Do not quote a new rate on their line, because you do not set it and the margin varies. Point them to their statement and their lender.
Then do the useful part. For a client carrying a real balance on a variable line, run the fixed option against what they have using the home equity loan comparison on this site. Some lines allow converting part of the balance to a fixed rate. A separate fixed second loan is the other path. Both trade a rate that can keep climbing for one that cannot. Both are still secured by the home, and if the payments stop, the lender can foreclose. Say that plainly.
Two cautions. A line with a floor above the new rate, a cap on increases, or a balance already converted to fixed may not move, so let the client check before you tell them it rose. And before you pull a list of past clients or past applicants, get the list and the wording approved by your compliance team, because Do Not Call rules, telephone consumer protection rules and commercial email rules can all apply.
Every rate named here is a published national average or benchmark from the dated sources on this page. None of them is an offer, a quote, or a rate anyone is being offered.
Rates rose 0.19 in one week and the Fed's own forecast points up, so the lock conversation is different now
The 30 year average went from 6.76 to 6.95 percent in a single week. That is the second largest one week move since the start of 2025 and the highest weekly reading since January 2025. The 10 year Treasury reached 5.01 percent, its highest since July 2007.
Here is what changed about the conversation. Until this week you could honestly tell a client that nobody knows which way rates go, so waiting is a real choice. That is still true about the market. What is new is that the Fed published its officials' own forecasts on Wednesday.
The middle forecast has the Fed's rate ending 2026 a quarter point above where it sits now. The lowest of the eighteen forecasts is exactly where it sits now. Not one projected a lower rate by year end. One detail you need before you say this out loud: the Fed writes those forecasts as the midpoint of its range, so the 3.9 percent you will see quoted as the low is today's level, not a cut. Get that wrong in front of a sharp agent and you lose the room.
Say the rest carefully too. That is a forecast of the Fed's own short term rate, not of mortgage rates, and the two are not the same thing. It does not tell you what the 30 year fixed does next month. What it does tell a client is that the people who set short term rates currently expect to raise them again rather than lower them. Some clients will still choose to wait, and that is fine when it is a real choice made with the facts.
So call every client in process who has not locked, following your compliance team's rules for contacting applicants. Know before you dial what your company charges to extend a lock and whether it offers a float down, which can let a locked loan take a lower rate if pricing improves under your company's conditions. Then make it concrete. Run their loan amount in the mortgage payment calculator at what they were quoted and again a quarter point higher, so they are deciding against a number instead of a feeling.
Every rate named here is a published national average or benchmark from the dated sources on this page. None of them is an offer, a quote, or a rate anyone is being offered.
Refinance applications are down 65 percent from a year ago, and the number is real but the comparison is unfair
Handle this one honestly in both directions, because your clients will see the headline.
Refinance applications fell 9 percent last week and sit 65 percent below the same week last year. The drop is real. But the comparison week is a bad one. In mid September 2025 the 30 year average was 6.35 percent and falling, which set off a burst of refinancing. This year's week also contained Labor Day and last year's did not, which pushes the same comparison further down. Measuring today against a boom exaggerates the decline. Do not repeat the 65 percent figure without that sentence attached.
What is true underneath it. Refinancing to lower a rate is mostly finished as a business for now. Of the main mortgages people already have, 66.7 percent carry a rate under 5 percent. For those borrowers, replacing a mortgage at today's averages to lower the rate makes no sense and you should say so. About 22 percent, a little more than one in five, carry a rate of 6 percent or higher. Be careful with that bucket. The survey average this week is 6.95 percent, so most of that group sits below today's average and cannot lower a rate today. The ones worth running are the narrower group sitting well above today's average, and the only way to find them is the actual rate on the file, not the bucket.
The rest of the work is about money, not rate. Americans carry $1.26 trillion in credit card balances, though not all of it is charged interest, and the average card rate was 20.94 percent in the Federal Reserve's May reading. Homeowners with a mortgage hold about $11.7 trillion in equity they could borrow against, about 1 percent more than a year earlier. So the client worth calling is often the one with a cheap mortgage and expensive debt everywhere else.
Before you pull or screen a list of past clients or past applicants to find them, get the list and the wording approved by your compliance team. Screening past clients using credit or debt information can trigger prescreening rules on top of Do Not Call rules, telephone consumer protection rules and commercial email rules.
Then run it in this order. Start with the blended rate calculator using their real balances, so you both see what all of their borrowing costs together. That usually shows the mortgage is the cheap money, which tells you replacing it is the wrong move. Then price a second loan through the home equity loan comparison, so they see the lower monthly cost against a debt that may take much longer to pay off and is now tied to the house. A card is not secured by the home. A second mortgage is. A fair number of these conversations should end with no new loan at all. Say so, even when the bigger loan would pay you more.
Every rate named here is a published national average or benchmark from the dated sources on this page. None of them is an offer, a quote, or a rate anyone is being offered.
The adjusted purchase number barely moved, so send your agents that one before someone sends them the scary one
Applications to buy a home fell 1 percent last week after adjusting for normal seasonal swings and the Labor Day holiday. Before those adjustments they fell 13 percent for the week, and they came in 19 percent below the same week last year.
That 19 percent is going to travel, and you need to describe it precisely. The 1 percent is a week over week figure that has been adjusted. The 19 percent is a year over year figure that has not. They are not two versions of the same measurement, and the survey publishes no adjusted year over year number, so do not swap one for the other. If you tell an agent the real number is 1 percent and not 19, you will get caught.
Say it this way instead. Week over week, after adjustment, buying applications fell 1 percent. The 19 percent is a comparison with last year that has not been adjusted, and this year's week had four business days against last year's five because of Labor Day. A large part of that gap is the calendar. Applications do not move in step with business days, so nobody can put a number on how much.
Be consistent. The same calendar helps the refinance comparison look worse too. Do not use the holiday to explain away only the number you dislike.
Rates rose 0.19 percentage points in a week, and the Mortgage Bankers Association reads the slowdown the same way. Its deputy chief economist Joel Kan tied the pause in purchase decisions to higher mortgage rates. That is their read and a reasonable one, but a single week with a holiday in it cannot prove why anyone paused, and a one week dip does not tell you whether those buyers come back.
So send your agents and builder contacts a short note with three things. The adjusted week over week purchase number fell 1 percent. The 19 percent year over year figure is unadjusted and heavily affected by the holiday. And you are available to re run any buyer's numbers at today's rates.
Then do the re running. Follow your compliance team's rules before contacting past applicants. Put the client's real numbers into the affordability calculator with them on the phone, including their actual homeowners insurance quote, so they watch their own figures move instead of reading a headline.
Every rate named here is a published national average or benchmark from the dated sources on this page. None of them is an offer, a quote, or a rate anyone is being offered.
What to watch next
Next week is quiet for big economic news, which usually means the market trades on whatever the Fed's officials say now that their meeting is over and on where energy prices go. There is no inflation report and no jobs report between now and next Thursday.
The one housing number is new home sales for August, from the Census Bureau, on Thursday September 24 at 10 o'clock Eastern. The Mortgage Bankers Association releases application numbers on Wednesday September 23, and those will be the first clean week since the Labor Day distortion. Freddie Mac's rate survey comes out Thursday September 24.
The next number that can really move rates is the Personal Income and Outlays report for August, out Wednesday September 30 at 8:30 Eastern from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. It contains the PCE price index, which is the inflation measure the Fed says it watches most closely.
The Fed's rate committee meets again on October 27 and 28. It does not publish new forecasts at that meeting. The forecasts it released this week are the ones that stand until December.
Loan officers, check current pricing before your calls each morning next week. After a move this size, yesterday's sheet is not today's.
Where the numbers come from
Rates are the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey national average, published Sep 17 2026, and the 10 year Treasury constant maturity via FRED, series DGS10, Sep 16 2026, which is a daily yield rather than a closing price. The claim that this was the biggest week for mortgage rates in more than a year, and that the 10 year rose in every trading session from September 9 to September 16, were both checked against the FRED series this week; the last larger weekly move was April 2025. The claim that the September 15 and 16 readings of 5.00 and 5.01 are the first at or above 5 percent since July 2007 was checked this week against the full FRED DGS10 series back to 2000, where the last such reading is July 19 2007. The claim that 6.95 is the highest weekly survey reading since January 2025, and that the 0.19 rise is the second largest one week move since the start of 2025, were both checked against the FRED MORTGAGE30US series. The year ago 30 year average of 6.26 percent is from Freddie Mac's own Sep 17 2026 release. The prime rate moved to 7.00 percent effective Sep 17 2026 following the Federal Reserve's Sep 16 2026 decision, as announced by major US banks; the FRED DPRIME series last posted 6.75 percent on Sep 15 2026 and had not published the new value when this brief went out. The Federal Reserve's decision, the 12 to 0 vote and the new target range of 3.75 to 4.00 percent are from the Federal Open Market Committee statement and implementation note of Sep 16 2026. The forecast that the Fed's rate ends 2026 a quarter point higher, and that the lowest of the eighteen participants' forecasts equals the current level, stated as the midpoint of the target range, are the median and the range low of 4.1 percent and 3.9 percent in Table 1 of the Fed's Summary of Economic Projections released Sep 16 2026. Application figures, the refinance and adjustable shares, the average contract rate and the comment from Joel Kan on buyers pausing are the Mortgage Bankers Association weekly survey for the week ending Sep 11 2026, released Sep 16 2026, as publicly reported. The Labor Day comparison is a calendar fact checked against the 2025 and 2026 holiday dates, Sep 1 2025 and Sep 7 2026, and is offered as a caution about the unadjusted figures rather than any claim about the MBA's own adjustment. The year ago rate of 6.35 percent for mid September 2025 is the Freddie Mac survey reading for Sep 11 2025 via FRED. Household figures are from the New York Fed, the Federal Reserve, FHFA, ICE and Fidelity, each dated in the list above. Release dates and times in the week ahead were checked this week against the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Census Bureau, National Association of Realtors and Federal Reserve calendars. The National Association of Realtors released existing home sales for August on Sep 10 2026 and publishes September figures on Oct 13 2026, so no existing home sales report falls in the week ahead. Twelve members of the Federal Open Market Committee voted on the rate; eighteen participants submit the forecasts, and the two groups are not the same, which is why both counts appear on this page. This brief is educational market commentary. It is not an offer of credit, not a quote, not a commitment to lend, and not financial, tax, or legal advice. Figures are national aggregates and say nothing about what any individual borrower qualifies for.