Rates and news note — week of October 8, 2026
Published October 8, 2026. Educational information only. Not financial, tax or legal advice. Every figure below is dated and sourced. Rates and prices move; nothing here is a forecast of what happens next.
The weekly rate
Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) for October 8, 2026:
| Product | Average | Prior week | A year earlier |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30-year fixed | 7.40% | 7.28% | 6.30% |
| 15-year fixed | 6.73% | 6.60% | 5.53% |
Source: Freddie Mac, Primary Mortgage Market Survey, https://www.freddiemac.com/pmms, survey dated October 8, 2026, accessed October 8, 2026. The same 30-year observation is carried by the St. Louis Fed as FRED series MORTGAGE30US, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MORTGAGE30US, observation date October 8, 2026, accessed October 8, 2026.
PMMS is published weekly on Thursdays at 12 p.m. ET and averages rates offered the prior Thursday through Wednesday. It is an average of rates in applications submitted to Freddie Mac through Loan Product Advisor, not a quote you would be offered (https://www.freddiemac.com/pmms, accessed October 8, 2026).
Three public items worth knowing this week
1. New home sales, August 2026. The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported new single-family home sales at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 684,000, up 6.4 percent from the revised July 2026 rate of 643,000, and down 2.0 percent from the August 2025 rate of 698,000. The supply of new houses for sale was 483,000, or 8.5 months at the current sales rate. The median sales price of new houses sold in August 2026 was $393,700, down 5.8 percent from $417,900 a year earlier. Source: U.S. Census Bureau and HUD, "Monthly New Residential Sales, August 2026," CB26-155, released September 24, 2026, https://www.census.gov/construction/nrs/current/index.html, accessed October 8, 2026.
2. Federal Reserve meeting calendar. The Federal Open Market Committee's September 15-16, 2026 meeting released its minutes on October 7, 2026. The next scheduled meeting is October 27-28, 2026. Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, "Meeting calendars and information," https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomccalendars.htm, accessed October 8, 2026.
3. Fannie Mae ESR forecast. Fannie Mae's Economic and Strategic Research group publishes monthly economic and housing forecasts; as of this writing the current issues are the September Economic Forecast and September Housing Forecast. Source: Fannie Mae, "Forecast," https://www.fanniemae.com/research-and-insights/forecast, accessed October 8, 2026. The September Housing Forecast is also what Geekabode uses to prefill the rate and price assumption lists in the scenario table, and the site names the issue date beside the figures.
What this can and cannot mean
What it can mean:
- The 30-year average is 1.10 percentage points higher than a year ago (7.40% against 6.30%, same source and dates). On the same loan size, that means a larger monthly principal and interest payment than a year ago. How much larger depends on your down payment, term and loan amount.
- Rates move week to week, and a weekly national average is context, not an offer for your file.
- New-home sales and prices are not the same market as the existing homes most buyers see.
What it cannot mean:
- It does not say what rates will do next week, next month or this year. No one can promise you that, and we will not try.
- It is not your rate. That depends on your credit profile, down payment, loan size and lender.
- It says nothing about whether you should buy now or wait. That needs your rent, your price, your down payment and your own assumptions.
Run it on your own numbers
Open https://geekabode.com, enter your city or ZIP, a down payment, and either a home price or the monthly payment you can carry, type your current rent into "Current rent (per month)," and press Run the analysis. The page uses the same Freddie Mac series with its observation date shown, builds the scenario table from your assumptions, and shows what it left out. To test a different rate, type a lender's quote into "Your mortgage rate" — the page then runs on your rate instead of the weekly average.
The calculator estimates from numbers you enter plus public data. It cannot predict prices or rates, and it is not financial, tax or legal advice. Figures in this note are as of October 8, 2026.