Mortgage rates barely moved for a third straight week, with the 30-year fixed-rate average landing at 6.66% β one basis point above last week β as the Federal Reserve’s annual Jackson Hole symposium opened Thursday in Wyoming.
The reading, from Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey released at noon Eastern, leaves borrowing costs almost exactly where they sat four weeks ago and 10 basis points above where they were a year earlier. For buyers, the practical picture has not changed since spring: rates stuck in the mid-6s, inventory building, and demand thinning.
The numbers
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.66% as of Aug. 27, up from 6.65% the previous week. A year ago it averaged 6.56%. The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.98%, up from 5.95% a week earlier and well above the 5.69% of a year ago.
The survey collects rates from thousands of applications submitted to Freddie Mac through its Loan Product Advisor system by lenders across the country, and reports an average of rates offered from the prior Thursday through Wednesday. That construction means it lags intraday market moves by several days β a point worth remembering during a week when a Fed chair is scheduled to speak.
Freddie Mac’s own read on the week was steady. “Mortgage rates changed little this week averaging 6.66%,” the company said. “The economy remains resilient, demonstrated by steady consumer spending and rising household incomes. More homes coming on the market and slower price growth in many areas are giving buyers better options and helping create a more balanced housing market.”
The week ends a brief downward run. Rates had slipped to 6.65% in a second consecutive weekly decline before this week’s flat print, after touching the highest level of 2026 earlier in the month.
Supply is rising faster than demand
Freddie Mac’s characterization of a more balanced market is visible in weekly transaction data. Redfin reported Thursday that new listings rose 0.4% week over week during the four weeks ending Aug. 23, reaching their highest level since April. Total homes for sale climbed 0.5%, the most since May.
Buyers, though, are not keeping pace. Pending home sales fell 1.1% from a week earlier to their lowest level in six months, according to the brokerage. The median U.S. home-sale price still rose 1.9% year over year, to just above $400,000 β price growth that is positive but slower than the pace of the past several years.
Redfin’s own weekly rate series averaged 6.65%, down from a 6.69% peak two weeks earlier but near the highest level in 13 months. The company identified Miami, Nashville and much of Texas as markets where the balance has tilted furthest toward buyers.
Why Jackson Hole matters this week
The Kansas City Fed’s Economic Policy Symposium runs Thursday through Saturday at Jackson Lake Lodge, under the theme “Financial Innovation: Implications for Payments and Policy.” Fed Chair Kevin Warsh is scheduled to deliver his first Jackson Hole keynote as chair on Friday morning β the event RealtyWire flagged in its preview of this week’s calendar.
Mortgage rates track the 10-year Treasury yield and mortgage-backed securities pricing rather than the federal funds rate directly, so what moves home loan costs out of Jackson Hole is not a policy decision β there is none scheduled β but any shift in how investors read the Fed’s intentions. That reading has already been unsettled this year by the chair’s approach to the Fed’s balance sheet.
The Federal Open Market Committee held its benchmark rate steady in a 9-3 vote in late July, with three officials dissenting in favor of an increase. Its next meeting is Sept. 15-16, one of the four each year accompanied by updated economic projections, according to the Fed’s published calendar.
What it means
Verified: the 30-year average is 6.66%, up a basis point on the week and 10 basis points on the year; listings are at a four-month high; pending sales are at a six-month low.
Attributed interpretation: Freddie Mac says added supply and slower price growth are producing a more balanced market, and Redfin frames the same conditions as leverage for buyers willing to negotiate.
RealtyWire analysis: three consecutive weeks inside a two-basis-point range says the rate market is waiting rather than repricing. Freddie Mac’s survey window closed Wednesday, before the symposium opened, so any market reaction to Friday’s keynote will not appear in this series until next week’s release. Whether the current stretch of rising inventory converts into sales volume depends on demand that the past four weeks of data show still declining.
What to watch: Friday’s keynote and the bond market’s response; next Thursday’s rate survey, the first to capture it; and the Sept. 15-16 FOMC meeting and its projections.
