Mortgages & Rates
Mortgage rate movements, refinancing, loan types, rate locks, lender comparisons, and how interest rates affect housing affordability.
Latest in Mortgages & Rates
Zillow says a median-income household would need to spend 34.3 percent of its income on a typical mortgage payment
A household earning the median income would need to spend 34.3 percent of that income on the monthly payment for a typical U.S. home, according...
Freddie Mac’s 15-year fixed mortgage averaged 6.60 percent on October 1
Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey put the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage at an average of 6.60 percent in its October 1 release, up from 6.42...
Fannie Mae began pricing a loan the same whether the lender pulled Classic FICO or VantageScore 4.0 on October 1
Fannie Mae’s pricing for mortgages delivered with a VantageScore 4.0 credit score stopped being a separate matter on October 1, 2026, when loans scored that...
FHA borrowers who turn down a trial payment plan three times in one default episode are treated as having failed it under rules mandatory since September 21
HUD’s Mortgagee Letter 2026-08, issued June 23, 2026 and mandatory for servicers no later than September 21, 2026, adds a counting rule to FHA trial...
Fannie Mae rewrites how rental income counts toward a mortgage for any application dated December 1 or later
Fannie Mae has rewritten how rental income counts when a borrower applies for a conventional mortgage, and the new rules become mandatory for every loan...
FHA’s 2026 one-unit loan limits run from a $541,287 floor to a $1,249,125 ceiling
For FHA case numbers assigned on or after January 1, 2026, the Federal Housing Administration’s one-unit loan limits start at $541,287 in low-cost areas and...
HUD’s paperwork filing puts an estimated 990,284 respondents and 3,431,820 filings a year through FHA loss mitigation
HUD estimates that 990,284 respondents will make 3,431,820 filings a year under the paperwork that governs FHA loss mitigation, according to a Federal Register notice...
Two lenders have settled on $847,440 as next year’s conforming loan limit, a figure none of 22 other tracked lenders is using
Two lenders, United Wholesale Mortgage and Neighborhood Loans, have published $847,440 as their 2027 conforming loan limit for a one-unit home, and none of the...
FHA has set January 1, 2027 as the implementation date for VantageScore 4.0 and FICO Score 10T, with lender office hours in November and January
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has put a date on a change that HUD and the Federal Housing Finance Agency first announced in April: January...
If federal flood insurance lapses December 11, the National Association of Realtors says most lending regulators suspend the purchase requirement, leaving each lender to decide
The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is scheduled to lose its authority at midnight on December 11, 2026, and borrowers closing on homes in flood...
HUD’s reverse-mortgage sale, due to be awarded October 30, covers only homes where every borrower has died, no non-borrowing spouse survives and no heir came forward
A reverse-mortgage loan sale due to be awarded on or about October 30, 2026 is defined less by its size than by who is missing...
A new law adds in-law units to what an FHA home-improvement loan can cover
Congress has added in-law units to the list of things a federal home-improvement loan is meant to cover, but no homeowner can use the change...
Mortgage lenders selling to Fannie and Freddie can now use VantageScore 4.0 instead of Classic FICO
Since September 9, 2026, a lender that sells mortgages to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac can deliver a VantageScore 4.0 credit score in place of...
Bids on HUD’s reverse-mortgage auction close Oct. 27, and the loans go out without FHA insurance
The Department of Housing and Urban Development is offering about 4,200 reverse mortgages, carrying roughly $1.3 billion in balances, to private bidders, and offers must...
FHA’s new credit scores start Jan. 1 on forward mortgages only, not reverse
The Federal Housing Administration will begin accepting two new credit score models on Jan. 1, 2027, but only for forward mortgages. HUD’s FHA INFO 2026-21,...
No 2027 conforming loan limit is official yet, and one lender is writing to $845,000
The Federal Housing Finance Agency has not announced a conforming loan limit for 2027, and the official figure remains $832,750 for one-unit homes in most...
The 15-year mortgage jumped to 6.42% from 6.09% two weeks earlier
Two consecutive weekly jumps carried the average 15-year fixed mortgage rate to 6.42% in the week of September 24, 2026, up from 6.09% two weeks...
The 30-year mortgage crossed 7% in the week of Sept. 24, from 6.30% a year earlier
The benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 7.03% in the week of Sept. 24, 2026, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey. That is 73...
Fannie Mae servicers can now contact homeowners who may qualify to drop private mortgage insurance, under an FHFA directive
Fannie Mae has told its mortgage servicers they may now reach out to homeowners whose loans may have crossed the line for dropping private mortgage...
Seriously late mortgages climbed to 574,000 in August, up 11,000 in a month, ICE says
Seriously delinquent mortgages rose by 11,000 in August to 574,000, according to ICE’s First Look report, the first monthly increase after five months of declines....