Average long-term mortgage rate falls below 6% in time for spring home-buying season | US news
The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate fell below 6% this week for the first time since the end of 2022; This is good news for home shoppers as the spring home buying season approaches.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the benchmark 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell to 5.98% from 6.01% last week. A year ago, this rate was on average 6.76%.
This year the average rate is around 6 percent. This latest decline, the third in a row, brings it close to its lowest level since September 8, 2022, at 5.89%.
Mortgage rates are affected by a variety of factors, from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors’ expectations for the economy and inflation. They typically track the trend of the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide when pricing home loans.
The 10-year Treasury yield was at 4.02% at midday Thursday; It decreased from 4.07% a week ago.
Mortgage rates have been low for months, helping boost home sales in the final four months of 2025, but it wasn’t enough to pull the housing market out of a slump that extends into 2022, when mortgage rates begin to climb from pandemic-era lows.
Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes remained at 30-year lows last year. And rising buyer-friendly mortgage rates this year weren’t enough to boost home sales last month. They reported the biggest monthly decline in nearly four years and the slowest annualized sales pace in more than two years.
Still, the fact that the average 30-year mortgage rate is currently below 6% as the annual spring home buying season gets underway may encourage potential homebuyers who can afford to buy at current rates to buy a home this spring.
“Assuming interest rates stay below 6%, buyers and sellers will begin to return to the market,” said Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at Bright MLS. “March is when the spring home buying season typically starts to ramp up, and with rates at three and a half year lows, this could be a very significant burner to the spring home buying season.”
