The below historical mortgage interest rate data is STRICTLY for INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. (Rates shown do not show all the data – just the highlights). If you want up-to-date interest rates, we recommend talking with a professional mortgage lender.
- 1970s: Rates in 1971 were in the mid-7% range, and they moved up steadily until they were at 9.19% in 1974.
- 1980s: Interest rates reached their highest point in modern history in 1981 when the annual average was 16.63%, according to the Freddie Mac data.
- 1990s: The average mortgage rate in 1990 was 10.13%, but it slowly fell, finally dipping below 7% to come in at 6.94% in 1998.
- 2000s: Mortgage rates steadily declined from 8.05% in 2000 to the high-5% range in 2003. Short-term rates, or the rates at which financial institutions borrow money, ended up being slashed to the point where they were at or near 0. This made it extremely cheap for banks to borrow funds so they could keep mortgage rates low. As a result of this change, mortgage rates fell almost a full percentage point, averaging 5.04% in 2009.
- 2010s: Riding the wave of low bank borrowing costs, mortgage rates entered the new decade around 4.69%. They continued to fall steadily and were in the mid-3% range by 2012. In 2013, rates went up to 3.98%. Rates went up to 4.17% in 2014. In 2015, mortgage rates fell back to 3.85% as the market calmed down.
- 2020-2021: Rates declined throughout 2019. When January 2020 came around, the average rate for a 30-year fixed was about 3.7%. Mortgage rates then hovered within the same range for the first half of 2021. The June rate increased slightly to 2.98%. Since then, rates have started to edge upward. As of October 21, Freddie Mac reported an average mortgage rate for 30-year FRM of 3.09%
Source: Rocket Mortgage online
