Decision day. The Fed's statement lands at 2:00pm ET today, with the press conference at 2:30pm and no dot plot this meeting; fed funds sits at 3.88%. Going in, Bankrate's 30-year fixed reads 7.31%, unchanged from Tuesday and down from 7.38% on Monday, while the 10-year Treasury is trading at 5.00% after closing Tuesday at 4.99%. Mortgage News Daily called Tuesday a sideways session and openly asked whether the announcement will move much. The language on future meetings is the part of the statement that can reprice the afternoon in either direction.
The bigger new data point is credit, not rates. ICE's September First Look, released Tuesday, puts the national delinquency rate at 3.66%, up 12 bps on the month, which ICE describes as roughly in line with the seasonal norm, and still 34 bps below September 2019. The foreclosure side is where the change shows: pre-sale inventory reached 303,000 properties, up 82,000 from a year ago and the highest level since early 2019. Loans originated in 2022 or later made up 43% of September's foreclosure starts. ICE's prepayment rate fell to 0.59%, its lowest since February 2025.
Those numbers connect to Tuesday's price prints. FHFA's House Price Index rose 0.3% in August and 2.4% from a year earlier, with July revised down to 0.2%; by Census division the annual change ran from 0.5% in the Mountain division to 4.4% in East North Central. The S&P Cotality Case-Shiller National Index rose 2.1% year over year, and September new home sales came in at a 676,000 annual pace against 680,000 in August. Slow price growth means the 2022-and-later borrowers ICE flags have built the least equity, and the prepayment reading says refinancing is still thin at today's levels.
On rates, 7.31% sits under Bankrate's 30-day average of 7.44%, inside a 30-day band of 7.22% to 7.57%, and 64 bps above the 90-day low of 6.67%. Freddie Mac's PMMS read 7.32% last Thursday, 0.08 lower on the week and 0.29 higher than a month ago, so rates have moved up modestly over the past month. After today, PMMS and jobless claims print Thursday the 29th, core PCE is due in a window running through Friday the 30th, and the next jobs report is November 6. For any file closing in the next 30 days, locking before 2:00pm takes the statement out of the equation; floating through it is a bet on the wording.
On the agency and GSE side, HousingWire reports USDA is adding six lenders to its delegated-authority LITE pilot starting December 1: Bangor Savings Bank, Fairway Home Mortgage, New American Funding, PennyMac Loan Services, Pulte Mortgage and Union Home Mortgage. USDA launched the pilot September 1, replacing its preclosing approval on guaranteed loans with approval delegated to participating lenders. Fannie Mae reports third-quarter results today, and Freddie Mac reports before the market opens Thursday, with a 9:00am webcast.
before 1:00pm ET, call every unlocked borrower closing in the next 30 days with a clear lock-or-float recommendation, so nobody is making that call after the 2:00pm statement.