Bankrate's conventional 30-year printed 7.09% today, up 3 bps from yesterday and the highest level in the 90-day series. The move is small but the direction has been one-way: 24 bps over seven days and 42 bps over thirty. The 10-year sits at 4.98%, up from 4.94% yesterday but still under the 5%-plus it touched earlier in the week, so the mortgage move is running slightly ahead of the benchmark rather than being dragged by it — lenders are still rebuilding margin after Wednesday's FOMC. Freddie Mac's weekly PMMS, a separate survey on its own schedule, landed Thursday at 6.95%, its highest since January 2025 and a 19 bp weekly jump — the largest one-week move in that series since April 2025. Falling oil gave bonds some relief mid-week, which is most of why the 10-year has come off its highs while the mortgage side has not.
What is on deck: Case-Shiller on September 22, new home sales between September 23 and 26, jobless claims and the next PMMS print on September 24, and the one that matters — August core PCE, scheduled between September 23 and 30. Core PCE is the Fed's preferred gauge and the Committee just told us in its projections that it expects to be at 4.1% on funds through the end of 2027; a hot print pressures the long end further, a soft one is the only thing on this calendar with the weight to pull the 30-year back under 7%. The next FOMC is October 27–28 and it does not carry a dot plot, so between now and then the data is the whole story.
On the range: 7.09% is the top of both windows. The 30-year has run 6.47% to 7.09% over 90 days (85 observations since June 20) and 6.67% to 7.09% over 30 — today is the high print in each. The 15-year at 6.46% is also sitting at its 90-day ceiling, against a 5.85% floor. Bankrate's FHA (6.72%), VA (6.77%) and jumbo (7.21%) series each reached their highest level since those series resumed in mid-August, so the strength is across the board rather than a conventional-only story. There is no cheap corner of the sheet today.
Today's focus is anyone you quoted in June, July or August who has not locked. That borrower is looking at a payment roughly $112 a month higher on a $400K loan than the number you ran for them a month ago, and about $165 higher than the 90-day low — and the range says there is no recent precedent for a better print than today's. This is not a scare call, it is a math call: the cost of waiting is now a documented number rather than a hypothetical. Do this today: pull every quote you issued in the last 90 days that has not converted, and send the borrower their old payment and today's payment side by side — no commentary, just the two numbers and an offer to re-run it.