Mortgage rates hit highest level in a month, pushing loan demand down 5%
Homes in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Mortgage rates rose for the third consecutive week, causing demand from both current homeowners and potential homebuyers to drop. Total mortgage application volume fell 5.2% last week compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association‘s seasonally adjusted index.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances, $806,500 or less, increased last week to 6.37% from 6.34%, with points remaining unchanged at 0.62, including the origination fee, for loans with a 20% down payment. That is the highest level in four weeks.
Applications to refinance a home loan, which are most sensitive to short-term moves in rates, fell 7% for the week but were still 125% higher than the same week one year ago. Last year at this time, mortgage rates were about a half a percentage point higher, and refinance volume was unusually low. The large increase from a year ago is more a factor of the very small volumes overall.
Applications for a mortgage to purchase a home fell 2% for the week and were 26% higher than the same week one year ago. Purchase demand has hovered around the same level for several months, regardless of interest rate moves.
“Application activity over the week was lower, with potential homebuyers moving to the sidelines again, although there was a small increase in FHA purchase applications,” noted Joel Kan, an MBA analyst, in the release.
The overall average loan size across both purchase and refinance applications fell to its lowest level since August of this year, driven by another drop in the adjustable-rate mortgage share, according to Kan.
Mortgage rates have not moved at all to start this week, looking at a separate survey from Mortgage News Daily.
“With only a few exceptions, bonds have been a rudderless ship during the government shutdown. With the backlogged data returning in a slow and uncertain fashion, rudder repairs are similarly slow,” wrote Matthew Graham, chief operating officer at MND. “The surprise release of stale jobless claims data did nothing to inspire and there was limited benefit from another negative print in the weekly ADP numbers.”
