Mortgage Rate History: 25 Years of the 30-Year Rate Charted

The three lines on the chart

The overlay shows the Fed funds rate, which the central bank targets for overnight lending; the 10-year Treasury yield, a benchmark set by bond markets; and the 30-year mortgage rate that borrowers actually see. They are related but not identical. Seeing all three together makes it easier to tell which line moved first and by how much, instead of treating one number as the entire story. Hovering over the lines on the page lets you compare their levels on the same date, which is the quickest way to see the gap between policy, bonds and borrowers.

What twenty-five years includes

A quarter-century window spans the build-up to the 2008 financial crisis, the long stretch of unusually low borrowing costs that followed, and the sharp upward move that began around 2022. Looking at the whole span, rather than only recent months, helps explain why what feels like a high rate today can look ordinary against some earlier decades, and why a low rate in memory may not return. Reading history this way also tempers headlines that describe each move as unprecedented, since a wider lens usually shows an earlier episode that looked similar in direction if not in degree.

Reading the timeframes

The chart offers LIVE, 1D, 1W, 1M, 3M, 1Y, 5Y, 10Y, 25Y and MAX views. Short windows show day-to-day noise, while long ones show regimes. Switching between them is a quick way to avoid two mistakes: assuming a small weekly move is a change of direction, and assuming that a long-term level is permanent. Different questions call for different zoom levels. A sensible habit is to begin with the longest view, find the regime you are in, and then step down to shorter windows to see recent movement within that regime.

Rates and housing conditions

Rates feed through to payments, which affect how many households qualify and how much they can offer. That in turn influences sales volume, listing time and discounting. The effect is not mechanical, though, because incomes, supply and local jobs also matter. The rate overlays sit next to the stress and opportunity lines so you can notice co-movement without assuming one explains the other. Household budgets, not rates alone, decide who can buy, so a rate chart is best paired with income and price information when you think about affordability.

Limits of rate history

History describes what happened and cannot tell you what rates will do next. The page shows rates as context and does not include them in the opportunity score. Years before 29 May 2026 are reconstructed from archived inputs for the combined lines, and the backtest hit rate is weak. Use the chart to understand the environment, and speak with lenders about the rate you could actually obtain. If you need a figure for planning, ask a lender for a current quote, since the chart reflects a survey average and not an offer made to you.

Mortgage Rate History: 25 Years of the 30-Year Rate Charted: questions