US 30-year mortgage rate climbs to 7.03%, 73 basis points above a year ago

Freddie Mac put the 30-year fixed average at 7.03% on 24 September, up from 6.95% a week earlier and 6.30% a year ago. The 15-year average reached 6.42%.

The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage in the United States rose to 7.03% in the survey released by Freddie Mac on 24 September 2026, from 6.95% a week earlier and 6.30% at the same point in 2025. The 15-year fixed average moved to 6.42%, from 6.26% the previous week and 5.49% a year ago.

Eight basis points in a week, 73 in a year

The weekly move is small: eight basis points on the 30-year loan. The annual move is not. At 7.03% against 6.30%, the benchmark American mortgage is 73 basis points more expensive than it was twelve months ago, and it has crossed the psychological seven-per-cent line that has framed US housing commentary since 2023.

What gives the weekly number its weight is direction rather than size. Rates have been grinding upward rather than spiking, which produces no single dramatic week but steadily removes borrowing capacity from the market. A buyer who was pre-approved in the autumn of 2025 and has not yet transacted is shopping with a materially smaller budget than the one they were quoted.

The shorter loan is repricing faster

The 15-year average is the more interesting line this week. It rose 16 basis points on the week, twice the 30-year move, and 93 basis points over the year against the 30-year's 73. That compresses the gap between the two products to 61 basis points, from 69 a week earlier and 81 a year ago.

A narrowing spread between the fifteen and thirty-year fixed matters to anyone choosing between them. The 15-year loan normally buys a lower rate in exchange for a much heavier monthly payment, and the size of that rate discount is the whole argument for taking it. As the discount shrinks towards half a percentage point, the trade gets less attractive for borrowers who value cash-flow flexibility, and demand tends to rotate back to the longer term.

What 73 basis points does to a payment

The arithmetic is worth spelling out, because percentage points understate the effect. On a 300,000-dollar loan repaid over thirty years, principal and interest at 7.03% come to roughly 2,002 dollars a month. The same loan at last year's 6.30% would cost about 1,857 dollars. The annual gap is close to 1,740 dollars, on an identical house at an identical price. That is the mechanism by which a rate series moves transaction volumes: nothing about the property changes, only what the buyer can qualify for. These are illustrative figures on a single loan size, not advice on any particular borrowing decision.

Against the price line

Rising financing costs have not yet pulled American values down. Glopra's United States row shows average home values 2.2% higher over twelve months, at 369,678 dollars, with a national listing price of 2,411 dollars per square metre and average asking rent of 1,948 dollars a month, all for August 2026. Bubble risk sits in the moderate band.

That combination, prices still edging up while financing costs climb 73 basis points, is what compresses affordability rather than prices. It also strengthens the arithmetic for landlords relative to owner-occupiers: rent is unaffected by the mortgage rate, so the yield on a cash purchase is untouched while the leveraged buyer's cost of capital rises. Round-trip transaction costs in the United States run near 6.9% of the purchase price. The next weekly survey is due on 1 October.

Sources: Freddie Mac, Primary Mortgage Market Survey, release of 24 September 2026 https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/09/24/3368592/0/en/mortgage-rates-average-7-03.html

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