Mortgage rates and the Fed

Does the Fed set mortgage rates?

No. The Fed sets the federal funds rate — an overnight rate between banks. A 30-year fixed mortgage prices off the 10-year Treasury yield plus a mortgage-market spread, both of which move on expectations of Fed policy, inflation, and growth — often before the Fed acts, sometimes in the opposite direction after it does. A cut that markets fully expected can leave mortgage rates unchanged on the day; a surprise in the statement can move them more than the cut itself.

The practical translation: do not time a home purchase to an FOMC date expecting the 30-year rate to follow the headline. Watch the weekly Freddie Mac survey average instead — the standard published measure of what a 30-year mortgage actually costs this week, and the number our model's default rate is reviewed against.

What happens to mortgage rates after a Fed meeting?

Rarely what the headline implies. By the time a decision is announced, the 10-year yield has priced it in; what moves mortgage rates afterwards is the statement, the committee's own forecasts, and the next inflation print. The record since the current cycle began, straight from the weekly survey:

"That week" is the survey print published in the decision week — surveyed Monday to Wednesday, so it is the rate the market carried into the decision. The later print is nine weeks on, except the 2026 hold row, which runs from the year's first meeting to the last print before the decision week of the September 16 hike. A row younger than nine weeks reads "pending" until its later print exists. Rates are Freddie Mac's 30-year survey average via FRED; decisions are from the Fed's own policy-rate history. Checked September 22, 2026.

Three cuts, and the 30-year finished flat or higher after every one — then five holds in 2026, through which the 30-year moved +0.66 pt anyway. On September 16, 2026 the Fed raised the range a quarter point, to 3.75–4.00%, its first move of the year ( statement). That row is in the table with its decision-week print; its later print lands on November 19, 2026, nine weeks on, and the change stays pending until then, because a same-week change would say nothing. The lesson is not that cuts raise mortgage rates or that hikes must; it is that the announcement is the least informative part of the day. Plan for a range of rates rather than a headline: the tables below price every rung, and preparing for a meeting turns them into three URLs.

When does the Fed meet next?

The Fed next meets October 27-28, 2026 . Remaining 2026 FOMC meetings (official calendar, checked 2026-09-17):

What would a rate change do to the rent-vs-buy answer?

This is the question that matters, and it has an exact answer. On our default scenario — a $420,000 home versus $2,100 rent, 10-year stay — the verdict at every mortgage rate:

Every row is a full month-by-month simulation with only the rate changed. The pattern to internalize: each half-point of rate moves the ending gap by tens of thousands of dollars and shifts the rent threshold that makes buying worth it. Rate moves the answer more than almost anything else you control — which is why "wait for rates" and "buy now" are both wrong as slogans and right only at specific numbers.

What the current survey rate does to the verdict

The latest Freddie Mac survey average is 7.40% (week of October 15, 2026; source). On the default scenario that puts the tipping rent at $2,684 a month, against $2,468 at the model's 6.5% default, and leaves renting ahead by about $107,000 after 10 years. Quarter points around it:

Same simulation as the table above, in quarter-point steps: each quarter point moves the tipping rent by about $61 a month. The survey print itself lands between rungs, so the sentence above uses the exact rate.

How do you prepare for a meeting, practically?

Pre-compute your own scenario at the rates that could plausibly exist afterward. Run your numbers at today's rate, then the same scenario half a point lower and half a point higher — three URLs, and you know your decision in every branch before the statement drops. (Start from the latest survey rate if you want the current market rather than the model default.) If the answer is the same in all three, the Fed meeting is not your variable; the price-to-rent ratio probably is. And if what you are really asking is whether to wait for lower rates, that bet is priced — forecasts included — in when will mortgage rates go down, and the cost of each year of waiting when buying already wins is priced in should I buy a house now or wait.

The "dot plot" is the chart of each committee member's own rate forecast — markets often move more on changes in those forecasts than on the decision itself. Every Fed term this page uses is in the glossary.

This page is a model of the math, not advice on when to buy.