Today was a victory for mortgage rates, but not nearly as much of a victory as the underlying bond market would suggest. The good news is that the end result is the lowest average 30yr fixed rate in just over a month.  The other news isn't bad, per se, but it is a bit confusing.  As we often discuss, mortgage rates are based on bonds because mortgages "turn into" bonds in order to be traded on the secondary market. You don't need to understand that process in detail to accept that it's true.  Case in point, here's a chart* that overlays our average 30yr fixed rate and the most prevalent mortgage-backed security (a bond comprised of a pool of multiple mortgages). Zooming in on Friday, we see bonds breaking lower at a faster pace than mortgage rates. This is actually very normal behavior for mortgage rates--especially when they're falling into the lowest territory of the past few weeks. If the bond market gains are maintained next week, rates should increasingly be willing to close the gap. Conversely, if bonds bounce in the other direction, rates likely will as well, but they'll have some cushion and may not need to bounce as quickly. * in both of today's charts, the right axis shows mortgage-backed securities PRICES. In the bond market, price varies inversely with yield (i.e. higher prices = lower rates). As such, the right axis is inverted (higher values at the bottom) in order to highlight the correlation with rates on the left axis.  Otherwise, the chart would look like a Rorschach test and it would be impossible to detect these subtle changes. 

On average, today's top-tier 30 year fixed mortgage rates are exactly the same as yesterday's. Rates are driven by the bond market and bonds continue waiting for bigger developments in the Iran war. At the moment, the market is in a sort of limbo as time remains on the 2-week ceasefire. In the meantime, there's a multitude of lower consequence war-related headlines on any given day. These have caused a bit of back and forth volatility in bonds, but not enough directional movement to nudge rates very far in either direction since Tuesday.  

On Tuesday, the average top-tier 30yr fixed mortgage rate hit the lowest level in exactly 4 weeks. If you're not interested in splitting hairs, today's rates are essentially the same. Although our official average is 0.01% higher, that's such a small change that many of today's rate quotes will look the same as yesterday's.  In the bigger picture, these rates are about halfway between the highs seen in late March and the lowest rates in more than 3 years seen at the end of February. The bond market (which dictates rates) remains focused on developments in the Iran war, but there's an ever-higher bar for relevant news. At this point the average war update is not having a noticeable impact. It will take a material change in the status of the war and a clear response in energy prices to catch the bond market's attention.

Mortgage rates had their best day of the month so far with the top tier 30yr fixed rate falling 0.08% for the average lender to the lowest levels in exactly 4 weeks. Today's improvement is a bit bigger than today's bond market movement would suggest. The discrepancy is due to timing. Bonds were improving fairly steadily since yesterday morning and the average lender didn't adjust yesterday's rates in response to the bond market improvement in the last few hours of the day. As such, that improvement was tacked on to today's. As for the drivers of the market movement, it's the same old story since the beginning of March. The Iran war is the primary source of motivation and oil prices are frequently the best correlated indicator for bond yields and interest rates. Around 10am this morning, oil dropped and bonds improved after a senior administration official said "a lot is happening today and tomorrow. We have all the ingredients of a deal, but it's not all there yet."

Mortgage rates are based on movement in the bond market and although bonds experienced some volatility in response to Iran war news over the weekend, they ended up in similar territory to Friday morning. As such, it's no surprise to see mortgage rates in similar territory as well.  The average lender began the day 0.02% higher than Friday, but bonds improved during the day and some mortgage lenders were able to make small downward adjustments mid-day. This keep the average top-tier 30yr fixed rate just below 6.40% for the third straight day. From 5.99% in late February, rates spiked as high as 6.64% on March 27th. They've fallen noticeably but moderately since then, but the recent trajectory has been flattening out as the market waits to see how de-escalation may play out.