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We are an independent, advertising-supported comparison service. Our goal is to help you make smarter financial decisions by providing you with interactive tools and financial calculators, publishing original and objective content, by enabling you to conduct research and compare information for free - so that you can make financial decisions with confidence.
Bankrate has partnerships with issuers including, but not limited to, American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi and Discover. How We Make Money
The offers that appear on this site are from companies that compensate us. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site, including, for example, the order in which they may appear within the listing categories. But this compensation does not influence the information we publish, or the reviews that you see on this site. We do not include the universe of companies or financial offers that may be available to you. SHARE: Caiaimage/Paul Bradbury/Getty Images August 26, 2022 Jeff Ostrowski covers mortgages and the housing market. Before joining Bankrate in 2020, he wrote about real estate and the economy for the Palm Beach Post and the South Florida Business Journal. Suzanne De Vita is the mortgage editor for Bankrate, focusing on mortgage and real estate topics for homebuyers, homeowners, investors and renters. Bankrate logo The Bankrate promise
At Bankrate we strive to help you make smarter financial decisions. While we adhere to strict editorial integrity, this post may contain references to products from our partners. Here's an explanation for how we make money. Bankrate logo The Bankrate promise
Founded in 1976, Bankrate has a long track record of helping people make smart financial choices. We’ve maintained this reputation for over four decades by demystifying the financial decision-making process and giving people confidence in which actions to take next. Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. All of our content is authored by and edited by , who ensure everything we publish is objective, accurate and trustworthy. Our mortgage reporters and editors focus on the points consumers care about most — the latest rates, the best lenders, navigating the homebuying process, refinancing your mortgage and more — so you can feel confident when you make decisions as a homebuyer and a homeowner. Bankrate logo Editorial integrity
Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. Key Principles
We value your trust. Our mission is to provide readers with accurate and unbiased information, and we have editorial standards in place to ensure that happens. Our editors and reporters thoroughly fact-check editorial content to ensure the information you’re reading is accurate. We maintain a firewall between our advertisers and our editorial team. Our editorial team does not receive direct compensation from our advertisers. Editorial Independence
Bankrate’s editorial team writes on behalf of YOU – the reader. Our goal is to give you the best advice to help you make smart personal finance decisions. We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers. Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy. So, whether you’re reading an article or a review, you can trust that you’re getting credible and dependable information. Bankrate logo How we make money
You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. We continually strive to provide consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout life’s financial journey. Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers. We’re transparent about how we are able to bring quality content, competitive rates, and useful tools to you by explaining how we make money. Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories. Other factors, such as our own proprietary website rules and whether a product is offered in your area or at your self-selected credit score range can also impact how and where products appear on this site. While we strive to provide a wide range offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service. have been unusually volatile this summer, jumping or plunging as much as a quarter-point in a single day. If you’re looking to lock in a loan for a home purchase or for a refinancing, the moving target adds a layer of uncertainty to an already-complicated process. “For borrowers who are rate shopping, it’s really difficult because they could literally be quoted multiple rate and costs scenarios throughout the day from one or many lenders,” says James Sahnger, mortgage planner at C2 Financial Corp. in Jupiter, Florida. Why mortgage rates are bouncing around
No central authority sets mortgage rates. Ultimately, rates are established by the investors who buy home loans. Most U.S. mortgages are packaged as securities and resold to investors. Your lender offers you an interest rate that investors on the secondary market are willing to accept. While the 10-year Treasury yield is an important benchmark for 30-year mortgage rates, investors have been struggling to make sense of the broader economy. How will the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate hikes affect rates? What impact might a looming recession have? As investors work through those questions, mortgage rates have gyrated. “Day-to-day and intraday volatility has been the norm for the last quarter and really since the beginning of the year,” Sahnger says. What you can do
Given the big swings in mortgage rates, borrowers are wise to take advantage of , says Greg McBride, Bankrate’s chief financial analyst. “With home prices and mortgage rates already at high levels, affordability is very squeezed for most homebuyers,” McBride says. “Don’t make it worse by waiting to lock your rate and risking a big jump in rates. Locking your rate once you’re within 30 days of closing eliminates that risk and is one less thing to worry about.” A rate lock protects you from an upward swing in rates. But what if you happen to lock in just before mortgage rates fall a quarter point? “Ask your lender about a float-down option in the event of a sharp drop in rates after you’ve locked,” McBride says. “It may not be available or it may not be worth it, but it is a question worth asking.” Lenders sometimes charge for float-down locks, so make sure the potential savings are worth any additional expense. Even if there aren’t extra fees, there will be some fine print to consider. For example, if rates fall by a tiny amount, it might not be enough to actually put the float-down policy in action. Check the details to understand the threshold that rates must cross in order to exercise the float-down capability. Making sense of your mortgage options is a challenge even in the calmest financial markets. The task is even trickier amid recent rate volatility. “It’s really important to work with a mortgage broker that understands the and follows the markets,” Sahnger says. SHARE: Jeff Ostrowski covers mortgages and the housing market. Before joining Bankrate in 2020, he wrote about real estate and the economy for the Palm Beach Post and the South Florida Business Journal. Suzanne De Vita is the mortgage editor for Bankrate, focusing on mortgage and real estate topics for homebuyers, homeowners, investors and renters. Related Articles