Mortgage rates fall to 7.18% for a third straight week, but a $400,000 loan is still $255 a month dearer than a year ago

The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell to 7.18% this week from 7.24%, according to Freddie Mac\'s Primary Mortgage Market Survey released Thursday. The 15-year fixed averaged 6.57%, down from 6.60%. It is the third weekly decline in a row, and Reuters, Bankrate and Realtor.com all led with it.

The weekly path

Source: Freddie Mac PMMS weekly history. The survey averages rates on loan applications from the prior Thursday through Wednesday, so it trails the market by a few days.

The number behind the number: what 22 basis points is worth

On a $400,000 loan, principal and interest at 7.40% is about $2,770 a month. At 7.18% it is about $2,710, a saving of roughly $60 a month, or $720 a year. That is the entire benefit of three weeks of declines.

The comparison that matters more is the one with last year. Freddie Mac had the rate at 6.22% on Nov. 6, 2025, which on the same loan is about $2,455 a month. Today\'s buyer pays about $255 more every month, roughly $3,060 a year, for the identical house and loan size. Put differently, the three-week decline has recovered about a fifth of the roughly $315 monthly gap that opened between last year and the October peak.

Why it moved

Mortgage rates track the 10-year Treasury yield more closely than the Fed\'s policy rate. In Treasury\'s daily par yield curve, the 10-year stood at 5.28% on Oct. 7, 5.09% on Oct. 16, 4.98% on Oct. 29 and 4.90% on Nov. 4, a fall of 38 basis points from the early-October level. The mortgage rate has fallen 22 basis points in that time, so it has captured a little under two thirds of the yield drop. Freddie Mac\'s window closed Wednesday, so Thursday\'s market moves are not in this number.

Outlets tie the decline to the market reaction after the midterm elections. We have not independently established that link; what the data does show is that yields were already easing before Election Day. For the live level, see our 10-year yield chart.

Who this actually touches

• A buyer with a lock set in early October. A lock at 7.40% does not improve on its own. Ask the lender whether a float-down option exists and what it costs before assuming the lower rate is available to you.
• A buyer still shopping. Three declines are a trend only in the narrowest sense. The rate was 6.95% on Sept. 17, so getting back there would take another 23 basis points, roughly the same size as the whole move so far.
• A real estate or title office owner. Volume follows the rate with a lag. Rate-sensitive buyers who stepped back in October may start touring now, but contracts signed this month close in December and January.
• A remodeler or mover. Sellers holding 3% to 4% loans still face a rate gap of more than three points. We covered that freeze in what it means for a mover, a remodeler and a real estate office.

What to watch

The next Freddie Mac reading is Nov. 12. Mortgage News Daily publishes a daily index that moves faster than Freddie\'s weekly average; see our earlier report on that index. Earlier weeks in this run are in our coverage of the Oct. 22 drop to 7.32% and the seventh straight rise to 7.40%. More is in our real estate section.

Sources: Freddie Mac PMMS; US Treasury daily par yield curve rates; Reuters, Bankrate and Realtor.com headlines on the weekly decline. Payment figures are principal and interest only, calculated by the Chronicle on a 30-year fixed loan, and exclude taxes, insurance and fees. This is market information, not investment advice.