Ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday and a typically slow period for home sales, mortgage rates remain stable. According to Mortgage News Daily, 30-year fixed rates averaged 6.32% on Monday, down 6 basis points (bps) in the past week.
On Tuesday, HousingWire’s Mortgage Rates Center — which analyzes locked loans across all credit profiles — showed that rates for 30-year conforming loans averaged 6.37%. That was down 1 bps from a week ago.
Rates for 30-year loans through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) averaged 6.15%, up 2 bps, while rates for 30-year jumbo loans also rose 2 bps to 6.20%.
The trend of lower and less volatile mortgage rates has been a key storyline for the U.S. housing market in the second half of 2025. HousingWire Lead Analyst Logan Mohtashami noted this week that mortgage rates have settled at levels below 6.64% for the past four months.
“As long as rates don’t spike back above 7%, we have a situation we can work with in 2026. Last year at this time, rates spiked, which caused that momentum to fade,” Mohtashami wrote.
Fed relief arriving in December?
Interest rate traders were becoming skeptical that the Federal Reserve would implement a third straight cut to the federal funds rate next month.
According to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, the odds were evenly split at this time last week about whether policymakers would hold rates steady or approve a 25-bps cut. But on the back of another tepid jobs report for September in which the unemployment rate rose slightly, 83% of traders now think that benchmark rates will come down again in December.
Inflation data could be a less reliable indicator of the direction of the economy as the federal government shutdown nixed the release of the Consumer Price Index for October. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics won’t publish the November CPI data until Dec. 18, after the Fed’s meeting on Dec. 9-10.
Fed governors Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson offered public remarks in the past week that didn’t include direct references to interest rate policies. But they did offer some clues into macroeconomic trends that are likely to shape thinking at the central bank.
First and foremost among these trends is the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and its growing influence on economic decisions.
“AI can enable a worker to complete in seconds or a few minutes tasks that previously took many minutes, if not hours,” Jefferson said during a speech in Cleveland on Friday. “Already, it is boosting worker productivity in a wide range of industries and occupations, including customer service, logistics, computer programming, and medical research.
“Increased productivity leads to economic growth, which may also create new employment opportunities. There is already robust competition among high-tech firms for workers who possess the skills to develop and effectively deploy this technology.”
Cook touched on “the use of AI in algorithmic trading in financial markets and the implications for financial stability” during a speech on Thursday in Washington, D.C.
“Used without careful testing and human oversight, generative AI may create risks that are difficult to monitor or mitigate,” she said. “The use of generative AI in trading may also improve on current algorithmic trading activity, especially if the less rigid models prove able to adjust in ways that stabilize rather than destabilize prices.”
Housing market headwinds remain
Existing home sales for October were representative of a housing market that’s sensitive to mortgage rate movements. Lower rates propelled modest sales increases of 1.2% on a monthly basis and 1.7% on a yearly basis.
But the seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales rose to only 4.1 million, well below the stronger figures that many market observers were banking on heading into 2025. The data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) showed that the annualized sales rate hasn’t reached 5 million in more than three years, and it hasn’t crossed 4.5 million since February 2023.
NAR’s pending home sales index for October, released Tuesday, was even less positive. Pending sales were up 1.9% from September but down 0.4% from one year ago.
Ahead of the existing home sales report, Cotality chief economist Selma Hepp urged cautious optimism about short-term market conditions.
“National home prices are softening … and inventory levels are at their highest since 2019,” Hepp said. “While this could help ease price pressures, it also reflects slower buyer activity. Regional disparities remain pronounced, with markets like the Midwest and New England showing resilience, while others, such as Florida and Washington, D.C., are seeing declines.
“Regardless of what the report reveals, it’s just one piece of a much larger puzzle. We’re still far from pre-pandemic norms, and a sustained recovery will require consistent progress across multiple indicators.”
First American senior economist Sam Williamson thinks that mortgage originators and real estate agents could identify more business opportunities among younger generations. His company analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data and found that Generation Z is attaining homeownership sooner than millennials.
“Their early-20s ownership rate tops prior cohorts and, by age 28, Gen Z is 1.7 percentage points ahead of millennials,” Williamson said. “For a generation still in its 20s, this early strength suggests their ownership curve could match — or even edge past — millennials in their early 30s.”