The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage climbed to 6.71% this week, its highest level in 13 months, as a worldwide selloff in government bonds pushed long-term borrowing costs higher across the major economies.
Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey, released Thursday at noon ET, put the 30-year fixed-rate average at 6.71% for the week ending Sept. 3, up from 6.66% a week earlier and above the 6.50% average of a year ago. The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.04%, up from 5.98% the prior week and well above the 5.60% of a year earlier.
It is the highest 30-year reading since the week of July 31, 2025, when the survey averaged 6.72%, according to Freddie Mac’s published rate history. It is also the highest of 2026: the survey’s previous peak this year was 6.69% in early August, and its low was 5.98% in late February. Rates have now risen roughly three-quarters of a percentage point from that February trough.
“Purchase demand has remained relatively stable indicating steady interest from buyers adapting to evolving market conditions,” Freddie Mac said in its accompanying commentary.
A global bond selloff, not a domestic one
The increase traces back to the bond market rather than to anything specific to housing. Mortgage rates track the 10-year Treasury yield closely, and that yield closed at 4.79% on Sept. 2, up from 4.67% on Aug. 27, according to the U.S. Treasury’s daily yield curve. The 30-year Treasury finished the same session at 5.27%.
In an analysis published Thursday, the National Association of Home Builders said the 30-year mortgage rate averaged 6.67% across August, up 13 basis points from July, while the 10-year Treasury yield averaged 4.68%, up 10 basis points. A basis point is one hundredth of a percentage point.
The pressure was not confined to the United States. NAHB economist Catherine Koh wrote that long-term government bond yields “across several major economics climbed to multi-year highs in August,” with the 30-year U.S. Treasury reaching its highest level since 2007 and long-term yields in Japan and parts of Europe hitting levels not seen in decades.
Koh attributed the selloff to investor concerns about persistent inflation, rising government debt and heavy sovereign borrowing, with higher oil prices tied to the ongoing Iran conflict adding to the inflation picture. By NAHB’s count, the 30-year mortgage rate has risen by more than 60 basis points since that conflict began.
The Fed’s inflation message
Domestic policy expectations have pulled in the same direction. Koh noted that Treasury yields faced additional upward pressure after the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole symposium in late August, where Chair Kevin Warsh emphasized that inflation remains above the Fed’s 2% target and that restoring price stability is the central bank’s primary focus β remarks that reinforced market expectations of tighter policy later this year.
Those comments landed after last week’s survey window had closed. RealtyWire reported at the time that rates held at 6.66% as the symposium opened, with any reaction to the keynote due to show up in subsequent readings. This week’s release is the second survey to fully reflect the post-Jackson Hole market, and it follows the pattern our analysis of Warsh’s approach and the bet behind the mortgage-rate high laid out.
Timing matters for reading the number. Freddie Mac builds the survey from mortgage applications submitted through its Loan Product Advisor platform, publishes it Thursdays at noon ET, and averages the rates offered from the prior Thursday through Wednesday. This week’s 6.71% therefore covers offers through Sept. 2 and does not capture anything that has happened in the bond market since.
What it means
The verified facts are narrow: the survey rose five basis points week over week, sits 21 basis points above its year-ago level, and is the highest since July 2025. Freddie Mac’s own read is that purchase demand has held relatively stable.
The payment math is arithmetic, and it is the part borrowers feel. On a $350,000 loan, a 30-year fixed mortgage at 6.71% carries a principal-and-interest payment of about $2,261 a month, by RealtyWire’s calculation. At last week’s 6.66% the same loan cost about $2,249 β a difference of roughly $12. Measured against February’s 5.98% low, though, the same borrower now pays about $167 more each month, or roughly $2,000 a year.
That is the more useful frame for the year so far. Weekly moves of five basis points are noise; the cumulative move since winter is what has reset affordability. It also sits awkwardly against supply. Sellers have been returning to the market for months β RealtyWire has tracked new listings climbing while buyers stayed on the sidelines β so households are being handed more to choose from at the same moment financing gets more expensive. More supply and higher rates pull in opposite directions, and the survey’s stable-demand language is Freddie Mac’s characterization, not an independently verified measure of buyer activity.
Two dates are worth watching. The next survey lands Thursday, Sept. 10, and will be the first to capture this week’s bond moves in full. The Federal Open Market Committee then meets Sept. 15-16, a meeting that carries an updated Summary of Economic Projections β the quarterly rate-path forecast that markets will read for whether the Fed shares the tightening expectations now priced into long-term yields. More on rates and lending is collected on our Mortgage page.
