Mortgage Rates Today, Aug. 19, 2024: Is This Fed Week?
The average 30-year fixed rate mortgage is 6.45% today, a decrease of 0.07% since yesterday. The 15-year fixed mortgage rate stands at 5.52%, down by 0.16%. The 30-year FHA mortgage now averages 5.84%, having stayed the same. Meanwhile, the 30-year jumbo mortgage rate is 7.01%, reflecting no change.
In brief
With only a couple of mortgage-rate-moving economic reports on this week's calendar, investors may turn to the plentiful scheduled Federal Reserve events to set their mood.So, mortgage rates today may be influenced by an interview with San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly, which appeared in this morning's Financial Times, and by a speech due later this morning from Fed Governor Christopher Waller.
Wall Street will be hoping for hints as to whether the next Fed announcement, due Sep. 18, will bring a quarter-point or half-point cut to general interest rates. For lower mortgage rates, the bigger the expected cut, the better.
Read on for more details.
Mortgage Rate Trends: Past 90 Days
Purchase Rates
| Loan Type | Rate | APR | Daily Change | Monthly Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30-Year Fixed | 6.45% | 6.49% | -0.07% | -0.41% |
| 15-Year Fixed | 5.52% | 5.58% | -0.16% | -0.48% |
| 30-Year Fixed FHA | 5.84% | 6.67% | +0% | -0.28% |
| 30-Year Fixed VA | 5.77% | 5.92% | -0.06% | -0.4% |
| 30-Year Fixed USDA | 5.81% | 5.85% | +0.04% | -0.2% |
| 30-Year Fixed Jumbo | 7.01% | 7.04% | +-0% | -0.28% |
| 5/6 Year ARM | 6.81% | 6.86% | +0% | -0.4% |
Refinance Rates
| Loan Type | Rate | APR | Daily Change | Monthly Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30-Year Fixed | 6.57% | 6.6% | -0.05% | -0.4% |
| 15-Year Fixed | 5.52% | 5.58% | -0.15% | -0.48% |
| 30-Year Fixed FHA | 5.83% | 6.66% | +-0% | -0.3% |
| 30-Year Fixed VA | 5.77% | 5.91% | -0.07% | -0.4% |
| 5/6 Year ARM | 6.88% | 6.93% | +0% | -0.35% |
Today
In her interview in The Financial Times (paywall) this morning, Mary Daly seemed to favor a smaller, quarter-point cut to general interest rates next month.
After acknowledging that recent economic data had made her "more confident" that inflation had been reined in, she continued: “Gradualism is not weak, it’s not slow, it’s not behind, it’s just prudent.”
Both Ms Daly and Mr. Waller are voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which is the Fed's rate-setting body. So, they ain't chopped liver.
Today's only economic report is leading economic indicators in July. But, for mortgage rates, that's less important than it sounds. And it's a long time since it made a perceptible difference to those rates.
Later this week
This week's big event for mortgage rates may be the speech that Fed Chair Jerome Powell is scheduled to give at 10 a.m. Eastern on Friday. It's hard to overstate how influential Mr. Powell's words can be over markets. And, just as today, investors will hang on his every word as they hope for hints about the size of the Sep. 18 rate cut.
Two more voting members of the FOMC have speaking engagements tomorrow. And more may be added to the calendar as the days pass.
Wednesday afternoon should see the publication of the minutes of the last FOMC meeting. These used sometimes to produce large swings in markets and mortgage rates. But the Fed has grown much more transparent in recent years, and shocks in these minutes are now rare. Still, you can never be sure.
The two economic reports this week that do sometimes move mortgage rates are scheduled for Thursday morning. They both are from S&P and are "flash" (preliminary and subject to later amendment) purchasing managers' indexes (PMIs) for August. There's one each for the services and manufacturing sectors.
PMIs tend to move mortgage rates only a bit and their impact usually fades fairly quickly. However, any report can cause a sharp movement if it contains sufficiently shocking and unexpected data.
Speaking of which, we should mention Thursday's weekly report of initial jobless claims. These normally pass by unnoticed because weekly data are notoriously "noisy," meaning they bring lots of outliers.
But, with many investors focused on employment and few other economic reports scheduled, markets just might pay attention to this one.
Forecasts
In a statement that accompanied last Thursday's rate update, Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, wrote: “In 2023, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage nearly hit 8 percent, slamming the brakes on the housing market. Now, the 30-year fixed-rate hovers around 6.5 percent and will likely trend down in the coming months as inflation continues to slow."
That
sentiment is pretty close to universal among mortgage-rate watchers.
Last Friday, the Mortgage Bankers Association updated its rate forecasts.
And it now expects the average rate for the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage to be 6.7% during the current quarter with slow but consistent falls in succeeding quarters. By the last quarter of 2025, it thinks that rate will average 5.9%.
Fannie Mae is yet to publish the August update
of its forecasts. But, in July, it, too, was expecting gentle but
consistent falls for the foreseeable future.
We're yet to spot an expert forecasting those rates falling either far or fast. But all the ones we've read reckon a gentle downward glide is highly likely.
Peter Warden has been covering mortgage, real estate, and personal finance for 15 years. He has appeared on The Mortgage Reports, Credit Sesame, Bills.com, and other publications.
