Geoff Martin - Realtor

Many thanks and appreciation for this past year, good health, family and friends. Happy 2026!

I often get asked about mortgage rates. Are they ever going to come back down to pre-pandemic levels? The good news is that the last few months have brought lower rates overall, leading to an increase in homebuyers entering the market. This week, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.22%. On a median-priced home, this could allow a homebuyer to save thousands annually compared to earlier this year, which means that affordability is slowly improving.

Will mortgage rates ever get back to pre-pandemic levels? That’s hard to say. Those were historically low rates.

Let’s take a look at what mortgage rates looked like historically. In these slides we see 30-yr and 15-yr rates going back 1Y, 3Y, 5Y, 10Y, and 54Y on the last slide (all the way back to 1971). It’s true that rates are higher now than what most of us are used to these days, but if we look back 20, 30, or 40 years, rates have been considerably higher, especially in the 80s! By comparison - today’s rates don’t look so bad!

Another question I’ve been asked many times: will an impending recession impact mortgage rates? Note the grey vertical lines on these graphs, indicating recessions, which sometimes correlate to higher mortgage rates, but certainly not always. So, the answer is no. There are many factors that affect mortgage rates; and a recession alone does not necessarily mean that mortgage rates will increase.

If you’d like to know more I am always here to help, and I’d be happy to put you in touch with an experienced lender who can answer all of your questions.

Have a great weekend!

Information sourced from FreddieMac.com

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