Where are rates today?
| 30-Year Fixed | 15-Year Fixed |
| 7.4% | 6.71% |
| 1 yr ago: 6.27% | 1 yr ago: 5.52% |
4 Things that need to happen for rates to go down.
- Peace with Iran: unlikely soon. The talks look stalled and the headlines are about threats, not a deal. The only betting-market number I found gave about a 5% chance of a nuclear deal before Nov 1, and that was from late August. (so.. not looking promising)
- A weaker jobs report: decent odds (medium to high). This is the most likely of the four. September added only 29,000 jobs against expectations of more, unemployment ticked up to 4.2%, and Kiplinger says job growth is slowing. The October report comes out in early November.
- No new tariffs: a toss-up (medium). A new round of 10–12.5% tariffs on 60 countries started in July, so a lot is already in place. Economists say the midterms as a reason trade headlines could flare up again.
- Nervous investors over AI debt: unpredictable (low to medium). It already happened once last week with CoreWeave. Whether it happens again is anyone’s guess, and it tends to help rates for a few days, not for months.
- What is CoreWeave? It is a company that rents out the computer chips AI runs on. It borrowed a huge amount of money to build data centers, and last week investors started worrying it might not be able to pay that back. When investors worry – they move money out of stock and into bonds – like Mortgage bonds!
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