Mortgage rates have achieved another 2025 first, reaching their lowest average in 10 months.
The 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.56% in the week ended Thursday, according to mortgage giant Freddie Mac, which buys loans from banks, bundles them into securities and sells them. That's down from last week when the average was unchanged at 6.58%, and it marks the fifth rate drop in six weeks.
A similar trend appeared in daily measures of the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage, which on Wednesday also reached a 2025 low at 6.51%. Daily rates are typically more volatile than averages because they include more real-time investor reactions to market movements.
The 15-year, fixed-rate mortgage average was unchanged from the previous week at 5.69%. On a daily basis, there was a slight decrease from the previous day to 5.88%.
Mortgage rates are taking baby steps
The slight drop marks what could be the start of another holding period for mortgage rates as markets wait for the next round of economic data, according to some experts.
Take this week's data for example: While rates are at a 2025 low, they moved only 0.02 percentage points from last week, a relatively minuscule change.
Nicole Rueth, a lender in Denver, described the phenomenon as treading water.
Mortgage rates are "hovering near recent lows with no clear push in either direction," Rueth said in a Bankrate survey. "Without any major economic releases, we’re likely in a holding pattern until the September jobs report releases ... Unless a surprise headline shakes the market, expect muted movement until labor or inflation gives the next cue."
If that economic data reveals weakness, mortgage rates could fall even more, but that decline likely won't be "in a straight line," according to Melissa Cohn, regional vice president at William Raveis Mortgage.
“If we continue to see weaker data, no matter what the Fed does, bond yields will continue to drop and mortgage rates will drop — but they haven’t plunged yet,” she said in a statement. “At some point over the next two years, rates will actually, finally, for real, come down.”
Even as mortgage rates remain mostly in a tight range, some buyers are taking advantage of the modest declines.
“Purchase demand continues to rise on the back of lower rates and solid economic growth," Sam Khater, Freddie Mac's chief economist, said in a statement Thursday. "Though many potential homebuyers still face affordability challenges, consistently lower rates may provide them with the impetus to enter the market.”
