The 30-year sits at 6.62%, up 4 bps today and 6 on the week, and the driver isn't inflation — it's the Middle East. Fresh US-Iran hostilities pushed yields up through Freddie Mac's survey window, and their weekly print landed at 6.55%, up 6 bps and the highest since August 2025. That's the number your borrowers are reading this morning. Note what it cost us: two downside inflation surprises in two sessions — Tuesday's CPI, Wednesday's PPI — bought less than a week of relief before geopolitics took it back. Today's tape is the interesting part. The 10-year is at 4.53%, down from 4.57% yesterday and 4.62% Monday, while the mortgage quote went the other way. That's lag, not divergence: our 6.62 is catching up to yesterday's bond weakness — MBS lost about an eighth of a point, per MND, with the selling led by the short end — and hasn't yet marked today's improvement.
Thin calendar ahead, one live wire. The next Freddie print is Thursday, and on today's bond levels it should come in flat-to-lower, because that survey is measuring a week already behind us. Fed funds sits at 3.63%, and the two soft prints have pushed July toward a hold, but Waller's line still governs — one reading isn't a trend, and now we have two that geopolitics has partly overwritten. The swing factor into next week isn't data, it's Iran headlines. Watch whether the 10-year can hold below 4.55%: that level decides whether 6.62 was the top of this move or the start of the next one.
On the range: 6.62% is 2 bps off the 30-day high, in a band that's run roughly 6.43% to 6.64%, and it sits above both the 30-day average of 6.54% and the 90-day average of 6.53%. Over 90 days we've traveled about 6.23% to 6.70% — rich end, but not an extreme. Be straight with anyone who asks: the 30-year is 8 bps higher than a month ago and roughly 39 bps above the April low. Nothing in this week's inflation data changed that. On a $400K loan today's payment runs about $2,560, roughly $100/mo more than the April low — this has been a year of paying to wait, not of waiting paying off.
The segment worth your time today is government-loan eligible. FHA is at 6.29% and VA at 6.30% against a 6.62% conventional — a 32-to-33 bp gap that has held all week while conventional drifted up. Any borrower you priced conventional in the last two weeks who would qualify FHA or VA deserves a re-run before the weekend; that spread is worth more to them than any move the 10-year is likely to hand you next week. Jumbo at 6.84% has sat in a 6.82–6.87 band for two weeks, so jumbo borrowers have no urgency and shouldn't be told they do. Do this today: re-price every FHA/VA-eligible file you quoted conventional in the last 14 days and text the three biggest payment gaps before close.