The US 30-Year Mortgage Rate Rose to 6.71%, 21 Basis Points Above Last September

Freddie Mac put the 30-year fixed mortgage at 6.71% on 3 September, up from 6.66% a week earlier and 6.50% a year ago, with the 15-year at 6.04%.

Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey put the average US 30-year fixed mortgage rate at 6.71% on 3 September, up from 6.66% the previous week and 21 basis points above the 6.50% recorded in early September 2025. The 15-year fixed averaged 6.04%, against 5.60% a year earlier.

The short end has moved twice as far as the long end

The more revealing number in this release is not the 30-year but the spread. Over twelve months the 15-year rate has climbed 44 basis points while the 30-year has climbed 21. A year ago a borrower gave up 90 basis points of rate to take the shorter term; today the gap is 67. Shortening the term has become a materially less attractive trade than it was last autumn, which matters most to refinancing borrowers and to anyone weighing a faster payoff against monthly cost.

What five basis points actually costs

On a $400,000 loan over thirty years, the move from last week's 6.66% to this week's 6.71% raises the principal-and-interest payment by roughly $13 a month. Measured against last September's 6.50%, the same loan now costs about $55 a month more. Neither figure is dramatic on its own, and that is the point: the US rate environment has been grinding rather than lurching, which is why activity has drifted instead of stopping.

Demand has held, according to the survey's author

Sam Khater, Freddie Mac's chief economist, said purchase demand had remained relatively stable, indicating steady interest from buyers adapting to evolving market conditions. That is a considerably calmer assessment than the rate direction alone would imply, and it is consistent with the pattern of the past year: buyers have repriced their expectations rather than withdrawn.

Where 6.71% sits against what property yields

Glopra's US data currently puts the national gross rental yield at 6.71% — numerically identical to this week's 30-year rate, which is a coincidence of timing rather than any kind of relationship, but a useful frame to hold. It means an unleveraged buyer at the national average of $2,454 per square metre is earning, before tax and running costs, roughly what a financed buyer is paying to borrow. Our effective rental-tax assumption for the standardised non-resident case is 10.66%, which takes the net figure meaningfully below the borrowing cost.

US prices are up 2.2% over the past twelve months on our data, and our bubble-risk score for the country is 57 out of 100, in the moderate band. The risk in reading the yield-versus-rate symmetry too neatly is that gross yield is a national average across very different metros, while a mortgage rate is a single national price: Miami, at $5,802 per square metre and a 75 bubble score, does not behave like the national aggregate. This is market data, not investment advice.

Sources: Freddie Mac, Primary Mortgage Market Survey release via GlobeNewswire, 3 Sep 2026 https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/09/03/3356148/0/en/mortgage-rates-average-6-71.html; Freddie Mac PMMS https://www.freddiemac.com/pmms

Market data: United States · Miami