Mortgage spreads hit lowest level in years, keeping rates near 6%

The unsung hero of the housing market in 2025 has been the improvement in mortgage spreads, because without the spreads improving as much as they have, mortgage rates would not have gotten near 6% this year.

I forecast that mortgage spreads should improve by 0.27%-0.41% this year, from a 2.54% average in 2024, giving mortgage rates a better chance to move down toward the bottom end of my mortgage-rate forecast. Today, the improvement reached 0.42%, so let’s examine why this has been so significant and whether they can improve even more

Mortgage spreads

Why and how did I achieve my target level this year? As rate volatility compresses and the Fed’s rate-cut cycle continues, the mortgage spread should have improved by 0.27% to 0.41% this year.

Now that we’ve reached my optimal improvement for mortgage spreads in 2025, I want to remind everyone that we are still not back to normal: we still have some room to move lower over time. Historically, mortgage spreads have ranged between 1.60% and 1.80%. If today’s spreads were as bad as they were at the peak of 2023, mortgage rates would be 0.98% higher. Conversely, if the spreads returned to their normal range, mortgage rates would be 0.52% to 0.32% lower than today’s level — which would mean mortgage rates between 5.76% and 5.96% today.

Mortgage rates and the 10-year yield

In my 2025 forecast, I anticipated the following ranges:

• Mortgage rates between 5.75% and 7.25%
• The 10-year yield fluctuating between 3.80% and 4.70%

Last week was Fed week, and a day before the Fed announcement, I wrote an article about how Fed Chair Jerome Powell tends to become hawkish, as other Fed members have, with the 10-year yield at yearly lows and mortgage rates near 6%. I also discussed this topic on this episode of the HousingWire Daily podcast with HousingWire Editor in Chief Sarah Wheeler. And since we are getting a new Fed chair in 2026, we also did an episode about the next Fed chair being more favorable to housing, here.

Given all the drama with the Fed, the week wasn’t too bad. The 10-year yield closed the week at 4.08% and the 2025 bond market and mortgage rates aren’t acting like they did in 2024 when mortgage rates shot up toward 7% after the Fed lowered rates. Mortgage rates per Mortgage News Daily ended the week at 6.28%, 15 basis points away from the yearly low and Polly’s rate-lock data showed mortgage rates at 6.26%.

Purchase application data

We’ve had 13 weeks of testing the housing data with mortgage rates under 6.64%, which has been the key level in the past. Over the last 13 weeks, we have had 8 positive prints, 5 negative prints, and 13 straight weeks of double-digit year-over-year growth in purchase apps. Last week saw 5% growth week over week and 20% growth year over year.

Earlier in the year, we saw healthy year-over-year growth, but the weekly data was choppy. The last 13 weeks have been the best of the year, but I would like to see 4 to 6 more weeks of positive week-to-week data. Usually, when rates increase, it does impact the weekly data for next week.

Here is the weekly data for 2025 so far:

• 20 positive readings
• 16 negative readings
• 6 flat prints
• 39 straight weeks of positive year-over-year data
• 26 consecutive weeks of double-digit growth year over year

In our weekly Housing Market Tracker, the data has showed some volatility due to the holiday weekend and an AWS outage. As I mentioned last week, we would need two weeks to stabilize the data after these events. This week, the data ran its adjustment course, but I recommend treating both this week’s data and last week’s data with caution.

Last week, we observed an unusual increase in inventory, new listings and weekly pending home sales data, all of which were stronger than typical. This week, however, these figures have fallen more than usual. We anticipate returning to normal levels next week.

Weekly housing inventory data

Inventory growth declined last week. We will get a more accurate read as the previous two weeks were a bit wild. The growth rate of inventory peaked at around 33% this year; now it stands at 16.45%. Inventory probably fell more than it normally would have week to week, as last week’s increase was too high as well. Even though the inventory growth rate has cooled down, it’s been a very positive story for housing this year.

• Weekly inventory change (Oct. 24-Oct. 31): Inventory fell from 867,811 to 856,701
• The same week last year (Oct. 25-Nov. 1): Inventory fell from 735,961 to 735,663

New listings data

New listings data made a historic week-to-week drop. In a typical setting, this would be a significant development, but the data from the last two weeks has been volatile, so please take this data with a grain of salt. To go from 69,000 to 51,000 is not normal. New listings reached my target level of 80,000 per week during the peak weeks of the season, but didn’t grow significantly from those levels, which was a disappointment.

To give you some perspective, during the years of the housing bubble crash, new listings were soaring between 250,000 and 400,000 per week for many years. Here’s last week’s new listings data over the past two years:

• 2025: 50,82
• 2024: 60,819

Weekly pending sales

Just like the data above, the weekly awaiting home sales had an outsized move two weeks ago to the upside, and now to the downside.

The week ahead: no jobs week, but manufacturing data and Fed speeches

Usually, I would say it’s jobs week! However, until the government shutdown is over, we have no government data to discuss. We have some more Fed speeches scheduled for Friday, during which a host of very hawkish Fed members are expected to say they will not support rate cuts in December. Sarah and I talked about this on the podcast that will go live Monday. We do have sufficient private data to indicate that the labor market hasn’t worsened, but we will see how much impact the government shutdown is having now, as it has been going on for so long.