Mortgages & Rates
Mortgage rate movements, refinancing, loan types, rate locks, lender comparisons, and how interest rates affect housing affordability.
Latest in Mortgages & Rates
A low home appraisal can sink your sale or refinance — but lenders must now offer a “reconsideration of value,” and solid comps often raise the number
A seller signs a contract at $425,000, then the appraisal comes back at $400,000. The buyer’s lender will only finance based on the lower figure,...
If your mortgage escrow collected more than it needed, the servicer owes you the surplus back — check your annual statement for a refund you may have missed
Every month, a slice of your mortgage payment disappears into an escrow account your servicer controls. That money is earmarked for property taxes and homeowners...
You don’t have to use the title company your lender picks — shopping your own title insurance and closing services can cut hundreds off the bill
Picture this: you are three weeks from closing on a $400,000 house, buried in paperwork, and your lender emails you the name of a title...
You may be able to take over the seller’s old sub-4% mortgage — FHA, VA, and USDA loans are assumable, saving a buyer hundreds a month
When Sarah Nguyen started house-hunting in suburban Denver in early 2026, she assumed a $350,000 purchase meant a monthly principal-and-interest payment north of $2,200 at...
FHA mortgage insurance now sticks for the life of the loan — but refinancing into a conventional mortgage at 20% equity drops it for good
A homeowner who took out a $350,000 FHA loan in 2020 with 3.5 percent down is paying roughly $160 a month in mortgage insurance right...
Putting a lump sum toward your mortgage and asking for a recast lowers your monthly payment for good — without the cost or paperwork of refinancing
Say you inherit $50,000 and send it straight to your mortgage company. You might expect next month’s bill to shrink. It won’t. On a standard...
Once you owe less than 80% of your home’s value, you can demand your lender drop private mortgage insurance — often $100 or more off every monthly payment
Every month, millions of homeowners write a check that includes a line item most of them would rather not think about: private mortgage insurance. PMI...
A record 2,600 programs now offer first-time buyers an average $18,000 toward a down payment — and most of that money goes unclaimed every year
A first-time buyer in Texas puts 6% down on a $340,000 house. That is $20,400 out of pocket before closing costs. A state housing finance...
Property-tax bills have hit record highs across most of the country — and rising escrow payments are quietly pushing “fixed” mortgage payments up by hundreds a month
When Maria Gonzalez closed on a three-bedroom house outside Houston in 2021, her monthly mortgage payment was $1,640. By spring 2026, it had climbed to...
Mortgage rates are stuck near 6.6%, so buyers are winning concessions instead — sellers covered closing costs or bought down the rate on 1 in 4 sales last quarter
The listing price on a townhouse outside Raleigh, North Carolina, never budged from $420,000. But at closing, the seller wrote a $12,000 check that covered...
Homeowners are sitting on $35 trillion in equity they can’t touch — tapping a HELOC now costs 8.5%, and trading a 3% mortgage for 6.5% adds $900 a month
More than 50 million American households are collectively sitting on a mountain of housing wealth larger than the GDP of every country on Earth except...
Foreclosure filings jumped 28% in a year to the highest level since 2020 — and rising insurance and tax bills, not bad mortgages, are driving them
When Maria Gonzalez bought her three-bedroom stucco house in Hillsborough County, Florida, in 2020, her total monthly payment was $1,480. She locked in a 3.1%...
The Trump administration ordered Fannie and Freddie to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds — the most direct rate-pressure move since the 2008 crisis
A homebuyer taking out a $400,000 mortgage today pays roughly $500 more each month than someone who locked in a rate in early 2021. That...
Home Depot reports Tuesday morning — the CEO already warned there’s “no catalyst” for housing, and 6.36% mortgages are about to be the only number that matters
Home Depot reports fiscal first-quarter earnings before the opening bell on Tuesday, May 20, 2026, and the nation’s largest home improvement retailer walks into the...
Home prices are now projected to be flat in 2026 — Zillow cut its forecast from 4-5% growth to 0% because 6.5% mortgages killed buyer demand
Spring 2026 was supposed to rescue the housing market. Fresh listings, warmer weather, motivated sellers ready to test the waters. Instead, the season opened with...
The 30-year fixed mortgage isn’t really fixed — escrow shortfalls just added $179 a month to the average homeowner’s bill
You signed the papers, locked in your rate, and built a budget around a mortgage payment that was supposed to stay the same for 30...
The 30-year mortgage just spiked to 6.57%, its highest level since late March — because Friday’s bond selloff pushed Treasury yields to 18-year highs
The 30-year mortgage just spiked to 6.57%, its highest level since late March — because Friday’s bond selloff pushed Treasury yields to 18-year highs The...
Friday’s bond rout pushed the 30-year Treasury back above 5% — every new mortgage, car loan, and student loan in America just got more expensive
If you are shopping for a house, a car, or a college degree this summer, the price of borrowing just jumped. On May 13, 2026,...
The 30-year mortgage was 6.27% this morning — but the 30-year Treasury just crossed 5%, and the last time that happened, mortgages hit 7.79%
If you’re shopping for a home in June 2026, a 30-year fixed rate of 6.27% already stings. But the bond market is signaling it could...
The 30-year mortgage averaged 6.37% but spiked to 6.54% after the CPI report — and 6% wholesale inflation means it’s not coming back down
Spring was supposed to bring lower mortgage rates. Instead, it delivered a gut punch. The 30-year fixed mortgage averaged 6.37% for the week ending May...