What happened to mortgage rates this week
The Freddie Mac 30-year fixed mortgage rate ticked down 3 basis points this week to 6.18%, from 6.21% last week, landing near 2025 lows of late October. The modest decline reflects a bond market that moved throughout the week—albeit within a tight range—following a mix of cooling and resilient macro signals. A rough November jobs report and a soft but potentially overly-optimistic inflation read last week were followed by a stronger-than-expected third-quarter GDP print yesterday. With Fed policy expectations largely priced in (and few signals about January motives), limited new data amid the government shutdown, and thin holiday trading, mortgage rates continue to drift rather than break sharply in either direction.
What it means for the housing market
While this week’s move is small, ending the year with mortgage rates near their lowest level of 2025 is a welcome development for homebuyers heading into 2026. Most of the rate declines this year came in late summer and early fall, when seasonal demand was already cooling, meaning most prospective buyers haven’t fully felt the benefit yet. Right now, inventory remains higher than last year in most markets, and buyers are heading into 2026 with a meaningfully better rate environment than they faced during the 2025 spring season, when mortgage rates were over 6.80%. If mortgage rates can simply hold in this range—or move modestly lower—buyers are likely to see a noticeable increase in purchasing power next year, even amid lingering macro and Fed policy uncertainty. It won’t take much improvement from here for 2026 to feel like a step forward after two slow housing years.
