The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell to 7.11% this week, its fourth straight weekly decline and its lowest level in seven weeks, Freddie Mac reported Nov. 12 in its Primary Mortgage Market Survey. The slide matters less as a turning point than as a pause. Rates are still close to a full point above where they stood a year ago, and the Federal Reserve is widely expected to raise its benchmark rate again in December.
The 30-year average dropped from 7.18% the week before. A year ago it was 6.24%. The 15-year fixed fell to 6.45% from 6.57%, against 5.49% a year earlier.
“Mortgage rates dropped to their lowest level in seven weeks, a welcome development that gives borrowers greater flexibility as they navigate the current housing market,” Freddie Mac said in its release.
Where 7.11% sits on the 2026 mortgage rate curve
Freddie Mac’s weekly history shows how much ground rates covered this fall. The 30-year average was 5.98% on Feb. 26, the low point of 2026. It crossed 7% on Sept. 24 (7.03%) and then jumped to 7.28% on Oct. 1. It peaked at 7.40% on Oct. 8 and Oct. 15, the highest reading since November 2023. Since then it has eased each week: 7.32% on Oct. 22, 7.24% on Oct. 29, 7.18% on Nov. 5 and now 7.11%.
The seven-week low is literal. The last lower reading was the 7.03% posted Sept. 24, just before the October spike.
In payment terms the retreat is modest. On our arithmetic, principal and interest on a $400,000 30-year loan comes to about $2,691 a month at 7.11%. That is roughly $79 less than at the 7.40% peak, but about $231 more than at last year’s 6.24% and nearly $300 more than at February’s low. These figures leave out taxes, insurance and mortgage insurance.
The survey covers loan applications submitted to Freddie Mac from the prior Thursday through Wednesday. This week’s window therefore includes the days after the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ hotter-than-expected October inflation report on Nov. 10, which RealtyWire covered here. Redfin said in its weekly housing update, published the same day, that daily average rates fell to a six-week low of 7.17% last week but “have since ticked back up after a hot inflation report.” Its daily series uses a different method from Freddie Mac’s weekly average.
The Fed is still leaning toward higher rates
The weekly decline runs against the direction of monetary policy. At its Oct. 28 meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee held the federal funds rate at 3.75% to 4% in a 10-2 vote. Lisa D. Cook and Beth M. Hammack dissented because they preferred a quarter-point increase. The statement said inflation “remains elevated” and closed with the line “The Committee will deliver price stability.”
The next meeting is Dec. 8-9, according to the Fed’s calendar, and it will include updated economic projections. After the October CPI report, Redfin head of economics research Chen Zhao wrote on Nov. 10 that a December increase “is definitely going to happen,” and that the open question is whether it will be 25 or 50 basis points. Her post quoted Fed Governor Christopher Waller’s speech in London: “I believe a 50 basis point hike in the policy rate should be considered at the December meeting.” Readers should treat that as one economist’s reading of the outlook, not a settled outcome. Mortgage rates follow longer-term bond yields more closely than they follow the Fed’s overnight rate, and those yields can move either way before Dec. 9.
Lower payments, but buyers are still scarce
The easing has not yet shown up as demand. Redfin’s data for the four weeks ending Nov. 8 put the median monthly housing payment at $2,755. That was a six-week low and down from $2,820 a month earlier, helped by a median sale price of $388,613, which was 0.9% lower than a year before. Pending sales were essentially flat week to week, but Redfin said they remain at the lowest level in its records, which begin in 2021. New listings slipped 1.3%.
The broader picture arrived on the morning of Nov. 12, when the National Association of Realtors reported that existing-home sales fell 5.5% in October to a 3.75 million annual pace, the slowest since 2010. Closings typically reflect contracts signed one to two months earlier, which for October means September and early October, when rates were climbing toward their peak. The four-week decline in rates came too late to show up in those numbers.
On our reading, the four-week easing gives buyers and refinancers a small opening before the Fed meets. It does not yet mark a reversal. Freddie Mac’s next survey is due Nov. 19, and its last reading before the December decision comes Dec. 3. For more coverage of lending, see RealtyWire’s mortgage section.
