NOW — nothing moved this weekend, and that is the honest read. Bankrate's conventional 30-year printed 6.90% Saturday and 6.90% again today; the five-basis-point step to that level, reported in yesterday's pulse, is still the last thing on the board. The driver is behind us rather than ahead of us. Treasury's own curve had the 10-year at 4.78% on September 4 and 4.96% at Friday's close — 18 basis points in five sessions, on a hot headline CPI whose core component held at 2.4%, and mortgage pricing has already absorbed it. Freddie Mac's weekly PMMS, which surveys on a different cadence and prints below the daily panels, came in at 6.76% on the 10th, up 5 on the week and 9 on the month. Every survey is pointing the same direction.
NEXT — this is a heavy week and it front-loads. The FOMC meets Tuesday and Wednesday, with the statement at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Wednesday and a full Summary of Economic Projections alongside it — the dot plot, not just the decision, which means the market gets the committee's own rate path for the next two years in the same release. Housing starts and building permits land Wednesday through Friday, jobless claims Thursday, and the next PMMS print Thursday. Fed funds currently sits at 3.63%. Practically: Monday and Tuesday are positioning days, and anything you can get to the closing table on Tuesday avoids finding out what the dots say.
RANGE — at 6.90%, the conventional 30-year sits one basis point under its 90-day high of 6.91%, 43 basis points above its 90-day low of 6.47%, and 21 basis points above the 90-day average of 6.69%. The 30-day window is tighter and no kinder: a 6.67 low, a 6.91 high, a 6.77 average. This is the rich end of the board on every window you can draw. Fifteen-year is 6.24% against a 90-day band of 5.82–6.31. Within Mortgage News Daily's own survey — a different panel, so do not cross-compare it to the Bankrate numbers above — the 5/1 ARM is at 6.67%, exactly its 90-day high, and its 30-year at 7.12%, the top of a series that only runs back to August 5. There is no cohort for whom today is a dip.
DO — since the level is going nowhere, work the arithmetic instead. On a $400,000 loan, 6.90% is about $2,634 a month in principal and interest. A month ago at 6.71% that same loan was $2,584 — so the month has cost a borrower roughly $50 a month, or $600 a year, and that is the number to use with anyone who has been waiting for a better print. Run it at the sizes you actually quote: $1,976 on $300K, $3,293 on $500K. The more useful lever today is product, not timing. Bankrate has FHA at 6.56% and VA at 6.59% against conventional at 6.90%, which on $400K is roughly $90 and $82 a month respectively — bigger than anything the last month of rate movement did, and available to any borrower who qualifies either way. Do this today: pull every pre-approval you issued in the last sixty days on conventional terms, flag the ones with FHA or VA eligibility, and re-run those two at today's pricing before Wednesday.