The week ended with two numbers pulling the same direction. The 10-year Treasury closed Friday at 4.96%, up 16 basis points from Monday's 4.80% and four basis points shy of 5%. And the University of Michigan's preliminary September sentiment index landed at 47.8, down 7.5% from August and the second-lowest reading in the survey's history — with year-ahead inflation expectations jumping to 4.6% from 4.0% and the long-run measure ticking up to 3.4% from 3.3%. Consumers pricing in more inflation while the long end sells off is the least comfortable pairing available three days before an FOMC decision, and this one carries a Summary of Economic Projections. The fed funds effective rate sits at 3.63% going in.
Yesterday's brief led on August CPI: headline up 0.4% on the month and 3.4% over the year, core up 0.3% and holding at 2.4% annually. Friday did not change that read, but it changed the tone around it. Mortgage News Daily's session recap has the morning rally completely erased by the close with no macro trigger beyond a modest move in oil — a bond market that will not hold a gain two sessions before a Fed meeting is telling you the meeting is the only thing it is trading.
The connection runs through expectations rather than the print itself. The case for holding rests on long-run inflation expectations staying anchored, and the Michigan survey just moved that number the wrong way in the same week CPI came in warm. That is the argument the hawks bring Wednesday, and it is why the dot plot matters more than the statement's first paragraph this time: the statement lands 2:00pm ET Wednesday, the press conference at 2:30pm, and the projections are what tell you where the committee thinks it is going rather than where it just was.
For pricing, every survey is saying the same thing and none of them is saying rates are coming down. Bankrate's 30-year fixed is 6.90% this morning, five basis points above yesterday and 16 above where it sat 30 days ago; its 90-day range is 6.47% to 6.91%, so today's quote is one basis point off the high. Freddie Mac's weekly PMMS printed 6.76% on September 10, up 5 basis points on the week and 9 on the month, and its 12-week track runs 6.49% to 6.76% with no pullback in it. Mortgage News Daily's daily survey is at 7.12%, up from 6.97% Wednesday. On a $400,000 loan, the 16-basis-point move since mid-August is roughly $42 a month — small enough that a borrower will not notice it on their own and large enough to matter to a debt-to-income ratio that was already tight. Any file you have sitting unlocked into Wednesday is a deliberate bet on the dot plot, so make sure it is deliberate.
On the purchase side the leverage has shifted and it is worth saying out loud to agents: Redfin counted roughly 58% more sellers than buyers in August, the widest gap in its records, with nearly three in five homes selling below their original asking price. ICE puts home insurance at close to 10% of a typical mortgage payment now, which is where a preapproval quietly breaks if you are still estimating it. And the MBA credit index fell on a drop in jumbo availability alone — conforming and government offerings were unchanged, so the tightening is concentrated above the conforming line, not across the board.
On the regulatory side: FHA-approved lenders will be able to use FICO Score 10T and VantageScore 4.0 for underwriting beginning January 1, 2027, per announcements from both scoring companies. The OCC, Federal Reserve, FDIC and NCUA jointly proposed new third-party risk management guidance with comments due 60 days after Federal Register publication, alongside an interagency statement on how core service providers to community banks are supervised. The same banking agencies issued an interim final rule under section 903 of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act raising the 18-month examination cycle threshold to institutions under $6 billion in assets — effective September 14, comments close October 14. FFIEC has moved CRA aggregate data reporting to Reporting Central for all reporting institutions regardless of primary regulator, starting with the 2027 reporting year and data due by March 1, 2028. And CrossCountry matched Rocket's $845,000 early conforming limit for 2027, ahead of the official ceiling.
pull every file you have locked with an expiration inside the next 30 days and check the lock-extension cost against Wednesday's calendar, then call the two borrowers whose extensions would cost the most and get a decision from them before the market opens Monday.