Yes, Mortgage Rates Are Now The Highest in More Than 20 Years, But Not Much Higher Than Yesterday

Readers of financial news outside the mortgage industry are accustomed to getting their mortgage rate updates on a weekly basis.  This has only recently started to change as other sources have caught onto the trend that we pioneered in 2009 when we first began tracking daily changes in rates.  If anyone was doing it before that, hats off to you!

If you take your mortgage rate news on the daily, you already knew today's headlines were highly likely based on the proximity to multi-decade highs discussed yesterday.  Today simply ended up being another moderately small, incremental step in a higher direction.  

Yet again, the movement in the underlying bond market (the stuff that pushes mortgage rates higher) didn't line up with any new headlines or major developments in economic data.  Traders are migrating toward higher rates in a methodical way with glacial momentum.  We won't know when they'll be done until the migration stops, unfortunately.  And yes, I did just basically say rates will keep going higher until they're done going higher.

The catch is that the inflection point could be this afternoon, or it could be months from now.  A few of the gloomiest doomsdayers might even say "years," but such a time frame is unlikely unless it presupposes a substantial correction lasting long enough to provide meaningful, temporary relief.

Tomorrow's commentary will be a deep dive on the "why" behind the rate spike that almost everyone thought would be over by now.