Mortgage rates have broadly been in a narrow holding pattern for the past 4 months and an even narrower range during December. Today will do nothing to change that with the average lender ending the day exactly where they left of yesterday. Earlier today, however, the average lender was offering slightly higher higher rates. The upward pressure came courtesy of the bond market's reaction to stronger GDP numbers for Q3. But that initial reaction proved to be a temporary overreaction, exacerbated by lighter trading participation associated with the holiday week.  In general, lower participation greases the skids for volatility, essentially magnifying the impact of events that might not have much of an impact otherwise. The bond market is technically open tomorrow (and thus, lenders will publish mortgage rates), but it should be even more heavily affected by holiday trading vibes.  Also, there isn't much in terms of important econ data to cause the kind of volatility seen today--no to mention the fact that today's volatility ultimately proved to be non-existent.

Mortgage rates are tied to movement in the bond market and bonds were close enough to Friday's levels that mortgage rates were essentially unchanged today. This keeps the average lender in the lower portion of the narrow range seen over the past 4 months.  If rates manage to move noticeably lower from here, they'll be challenging the lowest levels in more than 3 years. Meaningful momentum may be hard to come by over the next 2 weeks. During that time, the bond market will be fully closed for 2 days, partially closed on 2 days, and much lighter in volume and participation for the rest of the time. This can lead to random, small-scale volatility but it rarely results in lasting momentum. For that, we'll be waiting until the major econ data begins coming out in January--most notably the Jan 9th jobs report.

It ended up being a fairly uneventful day for mortgage rates despite scattered speculation about the impact of foreign monetary policy decisions. The average lender nudged just a hair higher, resulting in the 2nd lowest reading of the week. Apart from yesterday, the last day with lower rates was more than 2 weeks ago on December 4th. The coming week will be heavily affected by the realities of the holiday trading environment. There's no repeatable formula for this. We simply widen the range of potential rate movement that occurs for no apparent reason. Most of the time, rates simple drift aimlessly sideways, but on certain years, there are  inexplicable jumps/dips. We won't have a solid sense of where the rate market wants to be until the important economic reports start coming out in January.

Officially, there were 2 days at the end of November where the average lender's 30yr fixed rates were just a hair lower (0.02% difference).  Otherwise, today's rates would be the lowest since late October. The improvement follows this morning's release of November's Consumer Price Index (CPI). Inflation was so far below expectations that it raised new questions about just how much the government shutdown impacted data collection. The market still treated it as good news for rates, but most of the improvement was already in place before the data came out. CPI marked the last of 2025's top tier economic reports when it comes to potential impacts on rates. This doesn't mean rates won't move between now and January--only that they're far less likely to make any big changes based on economic reports.

Mortgage rates were perfectly unchanged compared to yesterday's levels for the average lender. This wasn't a huge surprise considering the absence of any high stakes economic data, but tomorrow could be a different story. Rates are driven by bonds and the economy is one of the primary sources of motivation for the bond market. In general, the two reports that get more of the bond market's attention than any others are the jobs report and the Consumer Price Index (CPI).  The jobs report obviously pertains to the labor market. This is the report that came out yesterday and although it didn't cause a big move in rates, bond volume was nonetheless at its highest levels since the last jobs report on November 20th.  CPI pertains to inflation. Recent Fed speeches have expressed slightly more concern over inflation's impact on the rate outlook.  Longer term rates (like mortgages) also take cues from inflation. If CPI is higher than expected, it tends to put upward pressure on rates and vice versa. This will be the first CPI report since the government shutdown (the last report came out on 10/24/25) which makes it all the more likely that rates will react to any major departure from expectations.