Many borrowers will see no difference between yesterday and today's mortgage rate quotes. The average lender moved just a hair lower. Once again, the rate market is responding to war-related headlines and their impact on oil prices. Rates don't always care what oil prices are doing, but at present, there's more correlation than normal due to the inflation implications from a protracted conflict. Inflation is the true concern for bonds/rates when it comes to oil. Today's headlines involved various de-escalation anecdotes, mainly centering on Israel and Lebanon. Prior to those headlines, rates were set to match yesterday's levels. Afterward, the average lender was 0.02% lower for a top tier 30yr fixed rate.

It's a fluid situation in financial markets on Wednesday. The 2-week ceasefire in the Iran war caused a big reaction last night, but the benefit to the bond market (bonds dictate rates) has been increasingly wiped out during domestic hours.  If we measure the reversal versus yesterday's closing levels at 5pm ET, the reversal is almost complete. But bonds were already rallying in the afternoon due to expectations for the official ceasefire news. All that to say, we're still in noticeably better shape than we were mid-day yesterday, but the overall improvement is smaller than most borrowers would expect. In fact, the average top-tier 30yr fixed rate is just barely at the low end of April's range at 6.40% vs the previous low of 6.41% on April 2nd. Earlier today, it was as low as 6.38%, but mortgage lenders made mid-day changes in response to bond market deterioration. 

In stark contrast to the entire month of March, April's mortgage rate volatility has been downright boring. To put this in context, the average top tier 30yr fixed rate rose a substantial 0.65% by March 27th. In the first five business days of April, they've held inside a range of just 0.04%. Today did nothing to expand that range although it did leave rates microscopically higher versus yesterday. The Iran war continues to be the dominant source of inspiration for the financial markets, including the bond market that underlies interest rates. Given that tonight brings a deadline for a potentially major escalation in the war, there's a risk of volatility heading into tomorrow.

It was an uneventful day for mortgage rates with the average lender close enough to Friday's levels that borrowers would not see much of a difference between the two days. The bond market (which underlies and dictates rate movement) was still in quasi-holiday mode as most overseas markets were closed for holidays. Financial markets (including bonds) continue taking cues from major developments in the Iran war, but today ended up being more about waiting for those events based on Trump's deadline for Iran to reopen The Strait of Hormuz or face major escalation.

On any given Thursday, there's a decent enough chance that the average mortgage rate headline will be unintentionally misleading. At issue is media reliance on the longstanding weekly mortgage rate surveys. If news stories are going to cite this data, that's fine, but it's critical to understand the methodology. Whether it's MBA (reported yesterday) or Freddie Mac (reported today), the weekly surveys have an inherent reporting lag--that is, they are published at least a day after data collection ends. In addition, they represent an average of 5 business days.  This means that the weekly mortgage rate would be reported as 6.2% if the first 4 days were 6.0% and the 5th day jumped to 7%.  This is most frustrating for consumers when the present moment's rates are higher than the weekly average. Thankfully, today's case is the opposite. The most recent long-term rate high occurred on March 27th, and we've moved noticeably lower since then. Today didn't add much to that move, but it nonetheless brought the average lender to the lowest levels since March 18th. [thirtyyearmortgagerates]