US 30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate (MORTGAGE30US)
Weekly US 30-year fixed mortgage rate (Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, FRED series MORTGAGE30US) from April 1971 to the latest survey (7.28 percent, 1 October 2026). The single most important price in the US economy and the cleanest transmission channel from Fed policy to household balance sheets. Includes the 18.63 percent record (October 1981), the January 2021 all-time low (2.65 percent) and the October 2023 cycle high (7.79 percent). AUD-trader framing on US housing-cycle read-through to risk-asset sentiment.
Chart
Weekly US 30-year fixed conforming mortgage rate from Freddie Mac PMMS, April 1971 onwards. Recession-shaded from 2001.
What is MORTGAGE30US?
The Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) averages contract interest rates on 30-year fixed-rate conforming mortgages originated each week across a large sample of US lenders. Freddie Mac publishes Thursdays at noon ET.
The 30-year fixed mortgage is the dominant housing finance instrument in the US. It locks the borrower's rate for the entire 30-year amortisation, with no rate-reset risk. Prepayment is borrower's option (mostly without penalty), which gives the mortgage market a convexity profile that influences MBS pricing and broader rates volatility.
Why AU traders watch the US mortgage rate
- Housing cycle as recession lead indicator. US residential construction employment has historically peaked well before recessions start. When mortgage rates spike, building permits fall, then employment falls. The US mortgage rate is one of the cleanest leading indicators of US recession.
- Wealth-effect channel. US homeowners feel poorer when mortgage rates rise and home equity is locked up. Consumer spending slows. This drags US GDP growth, which drags global growth, which drags commodities and AUD.
- Mortgage-rate vs RBA cash rate divergence. The AU mortgage market is dominated by variable-rate and short-fixed (2-5 year) loans, very different from the US 30-year fixed model. AU borrowers are exposed to RBA policy in real time; US borrowers are exposed to it on refinance. This structural difference means US housing transmits Fed policy more slowly but the eventual transmission is more severe.
Methodology
- Source. FRED series MORTGAGE30US, weekly, sourced from Freddie Mac PMMS.
- Endpoint. Public fredgraph.csv.
- Recession shading. NBER-dated US recessions from 2001 onwards (2001, 2007-09, 2020). Earlier recessions are not shaded.
- Refresh cadence. An automated cloud refresh pulls the series from FRED twice a day (07:30 and 13:30 Sydney time) and the site rebuilds when the data changes. If FRED is unreachable, the last good data is kept.
Related tools
- 10Y Treasury Yield - the input that anchors mortgage pricing.
- Fed Funds Rate - the upstream policy lever.
- US Unemployment Rate - the labour-market downstream of housing-cycle stress.
- CPI Inflation - the shelter-cost driver in inflation prints.
Frequently asked questions
MORTGAGE30US is the average contract interest rate on 30-year fixed-rate conforming mortgages originated in the United States, surveyed weekly by Freddie Mac across major lenders (the Primary Mortgage Market Survey, PMMS). It is the headline US mortgage rate and the most-watched single number in housing markets. The rate prices off the US 10-year Treasury yield plus a mortgage spread, which has averaged about 1.8 percentage points since 1971.
Because it's the most direct transmission of Fed policy to household balance sheets. Higher mortgage rates slow housing transactions, compress home equity withdrawal, slow consumer spending, and tip the economy toward recession. In 2022 the rate more than doubled, from 3.22 percent in the first week of January to 7.08 percent in late October, the biggest 12-month rise since the early 1980s, and it went on to 7.79 percent in October 2023. That froze housing transactions. Existing-home sales fell to multi-decade lows. The wealth-effect channel and the construction-employment channel both feed back into the broader risk-asset cycle.
Indirectly through global risk-asset positioning. A US mortgage-rate spike that breaks the US housing market would trigger US recession, USD strength on safe-haven flows, AUD/USD weakness, and ASX selloff. The 2022 US mortgage spike was a key macro variable behind that year's risk-off across global markets. The latest weekly reading is 7.28 percent (1 October 2026). Falling mortgage rates ease housing-cycle stress and support global risk; rising rates do the opposite.
The 2.65 percent low in January 2021 was driven by (a) Fed Funds at zero, (b) the 10Y Treasury near 1 percent, and (c) the Fed buying $40 billion a month of agency MBS via QE. It is the lowest rate in the survey's history, which runs back to 1971. Rates then climbed to 7.08 percent by October 2022, more than two and a half times the low in under two years, and exposed the affordability cliff facing recent buyers.
The mortgage spread is the 30-year mortgage rate minus the 10-year Treasury yield. Measured weekly against the 10Y close, it has averaged about 1.76 percentage points since 1971. It blew out to 2.72 points in April 2020 during the COVID shock, then narrowed to about 1.7 by December 2020 as Fed MBS buying took hold. In the 2022 rate shock and the start of Fed QT it widened to 3.26 points (November 2022), and it ranged between roughly 2.0 and 2.6 points through 2025. Mortgage rates can rise even when Treasuries are stable if the spread widens. Using the latest readings, the spread is about 2.01 points.
Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey, published Thursdays at 12:00 ET, sourced via FRED as MORTGAGE30US. The series begins April 1971 and the chart shows the full history. An automated refresh pulls it from FRED twice a day (07:30 and 13:30 Sydney time) and the site rebuilds when the data changes; if FRED is unreachable, the last good data is kept.
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