10/01/2026
It's easy to feel a little bleak about the current state of the union in real estate. The problem isn't simply āthe Fed raised rates.ā Long-term bond yields have exploded. The 10-year Treasury has been around 5.2%, near levels not seen since 2007, after rising roughly 47 basis points just during September. Mortgage-backed securities ultimately price mortgages, but that bond-market selloff is putting enormous upward pressure on borrowing costs.
The encouraging piece came this morning. August PCE inflation was softer than economists expected: 3.4% headline and 3.0% core year-over-year. Markets immediately reduced expectations for another Fed increase in October, and Treasury yields fell following the report. That doesn't mean mortgage rates suddenly go back to 6.5%, but it is at least the kind of report the mortgage market desperately needed.
