The week in rates
The 30 and 15 year figures are conventional conforming purchase loans at 80 percent loan to value for a borrower with excellent credit, which is exactly what the Freddie Mac survey measures. That is the profile most of your well qualified clients fit, so it is a fair starting point for a conversation and a poor one for anybody with credit repair ahead of them, a small down payment, or a loan above the conforming limit.
Sources: Freddie Mac PMMS national averages, Sep 3 2026, and the 10 year Treasury constant maturity via FRED, Sep 2 2026, the most recent value published. These are published national averages from the sources named above. They are not an offer, not a quote, and not a rate anyone is being offered by anyone, including me.
The 10 year finished at 4.79 against 4.66 the same day a week earlier, and it rose in every session to get there, 4.67 on Aug 27, 4.73 on Aug 28, 4.75 on Aug 31, then 4.79 on both Sep 1 and Sep 2, which is the highest the benchmark has been since Jan 13 2025. Note that the benchmark moved 13 basis points while the 30 year survey average moved 5, so the gap between them narrowed rather than holding.
The benchmark behind second liens
Deliberately no average home equity loan or HELOC rate here. Second liens are portfolio products priced by each lender, so published averages for them disagree by close to a full point depending on the credit profile assumed, and quoting one would imply a precision that does not exist. Prime is different: it is a single published benchmark, the same number at every institution. A HELOC is priced at prime plus the lender's margin, so prime tells you which way that product moves when the Fed moves, and a fixed home equity loan does not move with it at all. The margin is the part that varies, and the only honest way to know a client's is to price the file.
Sources: Bank prime loan rate via FRED, Sep 2 2026. These are published national averages from the sources named above. They are not an offer, not a quote, and not a rate anyone is being offered by anyone, including me.
What applications did
Total application volume was up 0.8 percent for the week on a seasonally adjusted basis, and down 1 percent unadjusted. Purchase applications were up 2 percent for the week seasonally adjusted, with the unadjusted index down 0.3 percent for the week and only 0.2 percent below the same week in 2025. Refinance applications were down 1 percent for the week and roughly 19 percent below the same week a year ago, with the refinance share of all applications slipping to 41.8 percent from 42.0. The adjustable share of applications reached 8 percent, its highest in five weeks.
Source: MBA Weekly Applications Survey, week ending Aug 28 2026, released Sep 2 2026, week over week figures seasonally adjusted unless stated otherwise, as publicly reported. Any rate or share named in this section is a published national average of applications already taken. These are published national averages from the sources named above. They are not an offer, not a quote, and not a rate anyone is being offered by anyone, including me.
The borrower picture
These numbers move slowly, but they decide which conversations are worth having this week. Each carries its own date because they refresh on different schedules.
| $11.7 trillion in tappable home equity Total mortgage holder equity is $18 trillion, of which ICE counts $11.7 trillion as tappable, meaning it could be borrowed against while leaving a 20 percent cushion in the home. Spread across 47.5 million mortgage holders, though it is not spread evenly and many hold none of it | ICE Mortgage Monitor, August 2026 as of August 2026 report |
| two thirds of outstanding mortgages are under 5 percent 66.7 percent of loans sit under 5 percent, and 14.3 percent carry a rate of 6 percent or higher | FHFA National Mortgage Database, Q1 2026 as of Q1 2026 |
| $1.26 trillion in credit card balances nationally total revolving card balances carried by American households | New York Fed Household Debt and Credit Report, Q2 2026 as of Q2 2026, released Aug 11 2026 |
| 20.94 percent average credit card rate the average rate across all commercial bank credit card accounts, roughly three times the 30 year mortgage average | Federal Reserve G.19, FRED series TERMCBCCALLNS as of May 2026 |
| $8,000 median in household transaction accounts checking plus savings plus money market, median among households holding such accounts. The mean is $62,410, far above the median, which tells you the distribution is skewed by a small number of large balances | Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances as of 2022 survey, the last full survey released |
| $155,800 average 401k balance, a record average across Fidelity administered plans, up 13.1 percent from a year earlier and up from $141,000 in Q1. Withdrawals rose alongside it: 3 percent of participants took a hardship withdrawal, against 2.6 percent a year ago, and 19.5 percent carry an outstanding loan against their plan | Fidelity Q2 2026 Retirement Analysis as of Q2 2026, reported Sep 3 2026 |
| $459 billion in home equity line of credit balances, HELOCs borrowers tapping equity through a second lien rather than touching the first mortgage | New York Fed Household Debt and Credit Report, Q2 2026 as of Q2 2026 |
| second liens carried 54 percent of equity extraction a second lien sits behind the first mortgage, think home equity loan or HELOC. Equity is being taken out through second liens rather than through a new first mortgage | ICE Mortgage Monitor, Q1 2026 as of Q1 2026 |
Every figure above is a published national aggregate from the source named beside it. Any rate shown here, including the credit card average, is a national average and not an offer, a quote, or a rate anyone is being offered.
If you are the borrower reading this
If you are floating a rate and closing in the next several weeks, the two data mornings below are yours as much as anyone's, and the useful question is not where rates are going. Send your loan officer one message today and ask two things: what it would cost to lock today, and what an extension would cost if your closing slipped. If you are not under contract yet, or your file is not complete, the honest answer to both may be that pricing cannot be quoted on your loan yet, and a loan officer who tells you that is being straight with you rather than dodging. Ask anyway, because the answer tells you where you actually stand. If you are shopping rather than buying, the number worth knowing is what a payment looks like on your own inputs rather than on a national average, which is what the calculators on this site are for. And if you are a homeowner with no plans to move, the last section below is aimed at you even though it is addressed to loan officers.
What this means for your week
The rest of this is written for the loan officers reading. If you are a homeowner or a buyer, stay anyway: this is what a good conversation with one should sound like from the other side of the desk.
Two data mornings, and the first one is tomorrow
Take these in the order they arrive. The August jobs report lands tomorrow, Friday September 4, at 8:30 Eastern. The consumer price index for August lands Friday September 11, five days before the Fed decides, and after this week that release is carrying more of the decision than the jobs number is. Here is the sequence that got us here. Chair Kevin Warsh gave the Jackson Hole keynote on Aug 28, published on the Federal Reserve's own site under the title In Our Time, in which he called the 2 percent objective a firm and fixed target and pointed at personal consumption expenditures inflation running 3.7 percent over twelve months and 4.1 percent over six. Market implied odds of a September increase went to about 60 percent that day and near 66 by Aug 31. Then on Sep 3, in remarks reported that day by CNBC among others, governor Christopher Waller said he could support waiting a meeting, and tied that to the August inflation report, and the odds fell back to roughly 55 percent. Treat the Waller reporting as reporting rather than as a transcript, and do not quote him to a client. So the practical instruction is simple. Every floating file gets a call before tomorrow morning, not before September 11, because tomorrow is the one already here. Then you do it again the following week, remembering Monday September 7 is Labor Day and the bond market is closed, which makes that week shorter than it looks. The script is one sentence and it should not promise more than a lock delivers: locking protects today's pricing for a set number of days, floating is a bet on data none of us have seen, and I am not going to guess it for you. Some clients will float anyway, which is a legitimate answer as long as they floated on purpose. What you cannot afford is a borrower who finds out Friday that nobody called them Thursday.
The list to pull, and the message to send with it
Purchase applications rose 2 percent last week seasonally adjusted, while refinance ran the other way, down 19 percent from a year ago with the refinance share down to 41.8 percent. Treat that split as consistent with a rate driven refi pipeline thinning while purchase holds, and stop there, because the survey counts applications and not reasons. Now the work, because reallocating your week is not an instruction anybody can follow. Pull the list tomorrow and work it Tuesday, since Monday is the holiday. Two queries. First, every purchase preapproval you issued in the last 120 days that has not gone under contract, oldest first. Those people are still shopping, their letters are going stale, and most of them have not heard from you since the letter went out. Second, every file you preapproved this spring that went quiet after a rate conversation, which you can find in your own notes without going anywhere near a credit file. Those borrowers made a decision against an assumption about where rates were headed, and this week is a reasonable occasion to ask whether the assumption still holds, not to tell them it does not. For the agents, one message rather than a chart: national purchase applications rose 2 percent last week on a seasonally adjusted basis even as the survey average reached its highest since July 2025, so demand is holding up better than the rate headlines suggest. Then offer to run a live file with them in the affordability calculator instead of sending anything else.
Somebody is going to ask you about an ARM this week
The adjustable share of applications reached 8 percent last week, the highest in five weeks, which means it has been higher before and is worth watching rather than calling a trend. The line that decides most of these conversations is this one: a client who says they will probably move, but has no actual reason to, is telling you they hope rates fall, which is the same bet as floating with a contract attached. Say that plainly and early. Then handle the comparison honestly, because this is where it usually goes wrong. In the week ending Aug 21 the MBA put the average contract rate on a 30 year conforming loan at 6.78 percent with 0.66 points, and on a 5/1 adjustable at 5.98 percent with 0.88 points, both national averages of what applicants actually did and neither one an offer to anybody. Quote the gap between those two rates without saying the second one carries more points and you have shown the borrower a bigger advantage than the one that exists. On the mechanics, do not teach the old version. A 5/1 is fixed for five years then adjusts annually, but a great many adjustables written today are 5/6, which adjust every six months, so confirm which one you are actually quoting. What governs it after the fixed period is an index, a published benchmark that moves with the market, plus a margin, a fixed number your lender adds on top that does not change. Get all three caps in writing, the one on the first adjustment, the one on each adjustment after that, and the one over the life of the loan, because the middle one governs every reset except the first and is the one most often skipped. Then ask the question that decides it: what is the plan if they still own the house when it adjusts. If they cannot answer that, the answer is the fixed loan, and you should be the one to say so.
The retirement account is getting raided while the equity sits there
This is the standing play on this page rather than a new discovery, and the reason to run it again is that Fidelity just put a fresh number on the other side of it. The average 401k balance hit a record 155,800 dollars in the second quarter, up 13.1 percent from a year earlier. Underneath the record, more people are pulling money out: the share taking a hardship withdrawal rose to 3 percent from 2.6 a year ago, 2.8 percent took a new loan against their plan in the quarter, and 19.5 percent are carrying an outstanding one. Set that beside the table above, where ICE counts 11.7 trillion dollars of tappable equity and the New York Fed counts 1.26 trillion dollars of credit card balances, against an average card rate of 20.94 percent in the Federal Reserve's May reading, which is a national average and not a rate being offered to anyone. Those are the same households. Somebody in your database is deciding this month between raiding a retirement account and borrowing against the house, and nobody has laid the two side by side for them. That is a call you can make in a week when the rate news gives you nothing. Go to your own notes and find the clients who raised money trouble in the last six months, rather than mining application data for a solicitation list, which is a question for your compliance department and not for a website. Then run their real numbers in the debt consolidation calculator and put both costs on the table, not one. Borrowing against the house puts the house behind the debt and can stretch a balance they would have cleared in three years across thirty, which lowers the monthly cost and can raise the total. A hardship withdrawal is generally taxable as income and can carry a 10 percent early distribution penalty, which is a question for their tax advisor and their plan administrator, not for you or me. Say all of it. Some of them should do neither, and you should be the one who says that too.
The week ahead
Three dates move pricing, and the first one is tomorrow morning. The August jobs report lands Friday September 4 at 8:30 Eastern from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The consumer price index for August lands Friday September 11 at 8:30 Eastern, and after Waller's remarks this week that release is carrying most of the decision. The Fed then meets September 15 and 16 and announces Wednesday September 16, with a fresh set of economic projections attached, which matter because they tell you where the committee thinks it is going after this meeting rather than only what it did at this one. One more thing on the calendar that is not a release: Monday September 7 is Labor Day and the bond market is closed, so the week of the CPI print is a short one. Market pricing on an increase has moved between roughly 55 and 66 percent in the last six days and will move again on both data mornings. Check pricing before your calls on each of the three, and do not carry Monday's assumption into Friday.
Where the numbers come from
Rates are the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey national average, published Sep 3 2026, and the 10 year Treasury constant maturity via FRED, Sep 2 2026, which is a daily yield rather than a closing price. Application figures, the refinance and adjustable shares, and the average contract rates and points are the Mortgage Bankers Association weekly survey as publicly reported, for the weeks ending Aug 28 and Aug 21 2026 as labelled in each case. The Warsh keynote, In Our Time, was delivered at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium on Aug 28 2026 and is published by the Federal Reserve Board, and the inflation readings of 3.7 percent over twelve months and 4.1 percent over six are the personal consumption expenditures price index as he cited them there, a different index from the consumer price index released Sep 11. The description of that speech, including the characterisation of the 2 percent objective as a firm and fixed target, is drawn from the published text. Governor Waller's remarks of Sep 3 2026 are summarised from same day news reporting, CNBC among other outlets, rather than from a published transcript, and are described here as reported. Odds of a rate increase are CME FedWatch market pricing as publicly reported between Aug 28 and Sep 3 2026, and they change daily. Retirement account figures are the Fidelity Q2 2026 retirement analysis as publicly reported Sep 3 2026. Household figures are from the New York Fed, the Federal Reserve, FHFA, ICE and Fidelity, each dated in the table above. Release dates in the week ahead are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Federal Reserve calendars, checked this week. This brief is educational market commentary. It is not an offer of credit, not a quote, not a commitment to lend, and not financial, tax, or legal advice. Figures are national aggregates and say nothing about what any individual borrower qualifies for.