Mortgages & Rates
Mortgage rate movements, refinancing, loan types, rate locks, lender comparisons, and how interest rates affect housing affordability.
Latest in Mortgages & Rates
A reverse mortgage can turn home equity into monthly cash for a homeowner 62 or older, but it shrinks what heirs inherit
A Home Equity Conversion Mortgage lets a homeowner who is at least 62 turn part of the equity in a house into cash without sending...
A veteran can refinance a VA loan to a lower rate with little paperwork through an IRRRL
The VA’s streamline refinance, formally the Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan, lets a veteran swap an existing VA mortgage for a lower-rate one without an...
A home-equity line can fund repairs, but it puts the house on the line if payments stop
When a roof fails or a furnace dies, a home-equity line of credit is often the cheapest large sum a homeowner can reach. It typically...
You can drop private mortgage insurance once you reach 20% home equity
Private mortgage insurance is a charge many homeowners keep paying long after federal law says it can stop. Lenders require it on conventional loans made...
Recasting a mortgage can cut the monthly payment without refinancing at today’s higher rates
A homeowner sitting on a low mortgage rate who has come into a lump sum faces an awkward problem: refinancing to lower the monthly payment...
Mortgage closing costs can run 2% to 5% of the loan, due at signing
The interest rate gets almost all the attention when a person buys or refinances a home, but a second, often-overlooked bill lands at the end...
Disabled veterans pay no funding fee on a VA home loan and can buy with nothing down
On a typical first VA loan with nothing down, the government’s funding fee runs 2.15 percent of the amount borrowed — about $6,450 on a...
Mortgage rates near 6.65% are sitting close to a one-year high, squeezing retirees who hoped to downsize
The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage stood at 6.65% in the week of August 20, 2026, down two basis points from the prior...
Americans owe $459 billion on home-equity credit lines, a variable-rate debt secured by the house
Americans now owe $459 billion on home-equity lines of credit, the highest total in more than a decade and the seventeenth consecutive quarter that the...
The 30-year mortgage is stuck near 6.7%, squeezing retirees who want to downsize
The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage sat at 6.67 percent in mid-August, barely changed from the week before and still higher than it...
A reverse mortgage can turn home equity into monthly cash, but fees and a growing loan balance eat into heirs’ inheritance
A reverse mortgage can convert years of home equity into tax-free monthly cash for owners 62 and older, and it asks for no monthly repayment...
Mortgage rates near 6.8% sit close to a one-year high, complicating a retiree’s downsizing math
The cost of borrowing to buy a home is sitting near its highest level in a year, and the timing complicates a decision many older...
Reverse-mortgage borrowers must keep paying property taxes and insurance or risk losing the home
A reverse mortgage can turn home equity into cash for a retiree without a monthly loan payment, but that convenience hides an obligation that catches...
On FHA reverse mortgages with case numbers assigned on or after August 4, 2014, a non-borrowing spouse must be listed correctly to stay after the borrower dies
A spouse can live in a reverse-mortgaged home for years without being a borrower, then face the loan becoming due when the borrowing spouse dies....
The federal reverse-mortgage limit rises to $1,249,125 in 2026 as seniors’ home equity hits a record
The federal ceiling attached to the most common reverse mortgage is $1,249,125 in 2026, up $39,375 from last year. The increase arrives while older homeowners...
VA-backed home loans can require zero down and no private mortgage insurance
A VA-backed purchase loan can remove two costs that usually arrive together for a lightly funded home purchase: the down payment and monthly mortgage insurance....
HUD can refund mistaken FHA mortgage-insurance payments, and confirmed checks typically arrive within 10 to 14 days
A mistaken mortgage-insurance payment does not have to remain trapped inside the Federal Housing Administration’s collection system. HUD recognizes refunds for overpayments, wrong case numbers,...
Mortgage rates hit a one-year high near 6.7%, raising the cost of downsizing in retirement
The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage climbed to about 6.66% in the week ending July 30, 2026, its highest level in a year....
The 30-year mortgage rate sat near 6.83% in late July.
The 30-year fixed mortgage sat near 6.83% at the end of July 2026 on daily-rate trackers, while the most-watched weekly survey put the same loan...
The federal reverse-mortgage lending limit jumped to a record $1,249,125 for 2026, freeing more equity for house-rich retirees.
Retirees sitting on high-value homes gained access to tens of thousands of dollars in additional equity after HUD raised the maximum claim amount for federally...