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Mortgage Rates Today, Sep. 3, 2024: It's Jobs Week

The fiercest competition is for the cheapest homes: mortgage rates today

The average 30-year fixed rate mortgage is 6.33% today, a decrease of 0.02% since yesterday. The 15-year fixed mortgage rate stands at 5.36%, down by 0.02%. The 30-year FHA mortgage now averages 5.65%, having dropped by 0.04. Meanwhile, the 30-year jumbo mortgage rate is 6.85%, reflecting no change.

In brief

For mortgage rates, by far the most crucial economic report on this week's calendar is Friday's jobs report for August. It has the potential to help or hinder those rates hugely and for weeks to come.


For weeks now, mortgage rates have been drifting, moving only modestly each day. That's because investors have been unable to make up their minds between two alternatives.

Namely, is the U.S. about to slide into recession? Or will the Federal Reserve pull off a rare feat and deliver a "soft landing?" One of those happens when too-high inflation is tamed without triggering a recession.

Economic data, including last Friday's inflation figures, haven't recently given investors a clear steer over their dilemma.

Official jobs reports are typically one of the two most influential data sets each month. If this Friday's is obviously good or bad, it could set the tone for markets and mortgage rates for the next couple of weeks.

Mortgage Rate Trends: Past 90 Days

Purchase Rates

Loan Type Rate APR Daily Change Monthly Change
30-Year Fixed 6.33% 6.37% -0.02% -0.15%
15-Year Fixed 5.36% 5.43% -0.02% -0.23%
30-Year Fixed FHA 5.65% 6.49% -0.04% -0.15%
30-Year Fixed VA 5.74% 5.89% +0.03% -0.09%
30-Year Fixed USDA 5.7% 5.74% -0.03% +0.15%
30-Year Fixed Jumbo 6.85% 6.88% +-0% -0.22%
5/6 Year ARM 6.81% 6.87% -0.01% +0.24%

Refinance Rates

Loan Type Rate APR Daily Change Monthly Change
30-Year Fixed 6.46% 6.49% +0% -0.14%
15-Year Fixed 5.36% 5.42% -0.03% -0.24%
30-Year Fixed FHA 5.65% 6.49% -0.04% -0.23%
30-Year Fixed VA 5.74% 5.9% +0.03% -0.09%
5/6 Year ARM 6.9% 6.96% +0.01% +0.25%
How we source rates and rate trends.

Coming up

Mortgage rates today and later this week

This morning's economic reports are of the type that tends to move mortgage rates only modestly and temporarily. Having said that, any report can have a bigger impact if it contains sufficiently shocking data.

The ones most likely to affect mortgage rates today are a couple of August purchasing managers' indexes (PMIs) for the manufacturing sector. These are helpful guides to economic activity because they measure what's happening in organizations' purchasing departments.

MarketWatch says markets are expecting today's PMI from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) to show a moderate improvement to 47.9% from 46.8% in July. There's no forecast for the PMI from S&P Global.

Later this morning, we'll have construction spending figures for July. That's expected to fall by -0.1%. But it's better than June's bigger drop of -0.3%.

Market expectations are important because investors tend to act on them in advance of each report's publication. So, they're already baked into mortgage rates. And it's the gap between actual numbers and what was expected that generates volatility.

Remember, mortgage rates tend to fall when the economy's doing badly. So, we want to see worse-than-expected data this week.

We'll brief you on tomorrow's and Thursday's reports before they land. But, even if they bring surprising numbers, their effect is likely to be temporary. That's because Friday's jobs report will likely wipe out their impact.

About The Author:

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.

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