U.S. 30-year fixed-rate mortgages are back to 6.11 per cent — up from 6.00 per cent last week and back to where they were five weeks ago — dealing a fresh blow to a housing market where nine in ten new homes are built with lumber, and where any prospect of a spring surge looks shaky. That is according to Freddie Mac’s weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey, published yesterday.
Just a fortnight ago, the benchmark rate had touched its lowest point in more than three-and-a-half years. Oil markets have since intervened. The Iran conflict has driven the 10-year Treasury yield to 4.25 per cent — up from 4.13 per cent a week prior — and with it, mortgage rates have followed.
The 15-year fixed rate also edged higher, rising to 5.50 per cent from 5.43 per cent. Both rates remain below March 2025 levels — 6.65 per cent and 5.80 per cent respectively — but the direction has turned.
Hannah Jones, senior economist research analyst at Realtor.com, said geopolitics were now running the show. “Under normal circumstances, these soft economic readings would put downward pressure on mortgage rates, however, the news out of the Middle East is overriding those signals,” Jones said in an email.
The soft readings Jones referred to include a weak February jobs report and a relatively stable consumer inflation print. And while both would ordinarily push rates lower, rising oil prices are keeping inflation fears elevated — complicating any near-term path to Federal Reserve rate cuts.
Buyers are moving, if cautiously. Existing-home sales gained 1.7 per cent in February and purchase applications lifted this week, with Freddie Mac’s chief economist pointing to both as evidence that shoppers are responding to rates still sitting below last year’s. The spring selling season — which accounts for a disproportionate share of annual residential starts — is just getting underway.
But last year was a 30-year low for existing-home sales. And sales have run near a four-million annual pace since 2023, well short of the 5.2-million rate that defines a healthy market. January and February 2026 both came in below their year-ago equivalents — despite rates being lower than a year ago.
A mortgage rate stalled at 6.11 per cent keeps that pressure in place through what should be the year’s busiest building period — with Canadian softwood already facing combined duties above 35 per cent on U.S.-bound shipments, costs the National Association of Home Builders has warned are adding thousands of dollars to the price of a newly built home.
It comes as Wood Central reported that U.S. softwood imports crashed to 20-year lows as tariffs began to bite, with the decline expected to deepen further after President Donald Trump reaffirmed his commitment to extend levies across all U.S.-bound lumber.
