The stock market had a quiet week. The Dow finished up 0.28 percent, the S&P 500 up 1.21 percent and the Nasdaq up 2.06 percent.
Mortgage rates did not have a quiet week. I do not know if that is interesting to you, but I love real estate and the movement this week was astounding.
Mortgage rates follow the 10-year Treasury yield, not the Federal Reserve. I wrote about this in Why Your Mortgage Rate Doesn’t Move When the Fed Does back in June. This week the 10-year hit its highest level in 19 years, and I can show you exactly what that did to real mortgage rates in one week.
The 10-year hit a 19-year high
The 10-year Treasury yield closed at 5.00 percent on Friday the 18th. On Thursday, September 24, it closed at 5.19 percent, the highest level since 2007. It settled back to about 5.17 percent on Friday, September 25.
That is a move of about 17 basis points for the week. As an FYI, a basis point is one hundredth of a percentage point. This term shows up in rate coverage and in earnings releases, where a company will report that margins improved 120 basis points, and they get used because a percentage of a percentage gets confusing quickly.
This is very high for recent times. It is actually the highest it has been in approximately 19 years but nowhere close to the all-time high near 15 percent in the early 1980s.
Almost all of that move came in two days. The yield sat at 4.96 percent on Tuesday and closed at 5.19 percent on Thursday.
One thing to be careful about before reading the next section. Mortgage rates follow the 10-year, but they do not track it point for point. The 10-year moved about 17 basis points this week and mortgage rates moved 25 on most programs and more on a couple of them. They generally trend the same direction but they do not identically match.
What that looked like at a real lender
I still know people from my years writing home loans. One of them is a branch manager who sends rate updates to his team. He normally sends one a week. This week the market moved enough that he sent a second one. Please note this is for Southern California. A high balance loan here is a conforming loan between $832,750 and the upper limit of $1,249,125. Above that limit it becomes a jumbo loan.
Here is where his rates sat a week ago Friday:
- Conforming under $832,750: 7.125 percent
- High balance: 7.25 percent
- FHA and VA: 6.625 to 6.75 percent
- Jumbo fixed: 6.75 percent
- Jumbo ARM: 6.625 percent
And here is where they sat yesterday:
- Conforming under $832,750: 7.375 percent
- High balance: 7.625 percent, and now it includes a half point fee
- FHA and VA: 6.875 to 6.99 percent
- Jumbo fixed: 7.125 percent
- Jumbo ARM: 6.875 percent
Most programs moved up a quarter point. High balance and jumbo fixed moved three eighths. The high balance loan also went from no points to a half point, which can get quite expensive on the loan values where I live. For a $900,000 loan, just to get to a rate, you need to pay $4,500 as a closing cost. The lowest rate required points!
If these loan types do not mean much to you, I published a post yesterday about the four main loan types and who qualifies for each.
What the increases actually cost
On a loan at the conforming limit of $832,750, going from 7.125 percent to 7.375 percent is $141.21 a month.
That is about $1,694 a year. Over 30 years it is roughly $50,834.
Same house. Same borrower. Same lender. One week.
On a $900,000 high balance loan it is worse. Going from 7.25 percent to 7.625 percent is $230.56 a month, and the half point fee is another $4,500 due at closing. A week ago that fee did not exist.
And nobody gets the rate in that text message automatically. It assumes a strong credit score. From there, pricing moves in bands and will get more expensive with every 20 point drop meaning pricing for a 720 credit score is higher than a 740 credit score. I talk about this in the same post mentioned above about home loan types. If you want more on the importance of strong credit, read Your Credit Score is Important.
LSU Family Weekend
This will not mean much to you but next weekend is Family Weekend at LSU and I get to see my daughter, Thalia. Just typing this makes my eyes water. It is difficult to explain how much I miss her. I knew I would struggle but the struggle has exceeded my expectations.
I will leave with my wife on Thursday and will hit the ground running when we land in Baton Rouge. Dinner in the French Quarter Thursday night followed by a long list of events Friday followed by an LSU football game on Saturday. I know the weekend will go by too fast but I will savor every second of it.
I will do my best to publish the Weekly Notes next week but it might be early or late or skipped. We will see how the week goes. Until then, be well.
Blessings Come From the Worst of Times.
Thalia is one of the biggest ones coming out of my story.
Christopher
Nothing here is personalized financial advice — just one person’s notes. Always do your own homework before you invest.
Weekly Notes — October 10, 2026