Your Exit Buyer Lost $12,000 of Budget in Eight Days. The Fed Meets Tuesday.

By Steve Waller · September 14, 2026

What happened

A week ago the argument was whether the Fed would cut again this year. It is now about whether it hikes on Wednesday. Freddie Mac's weekly survey put the 30-year fixed at 6.76% on 10 September, up from 6.71% the week before and 6.35% a year ago. The 15-year sits at 6.09%.

The weekly survey is the slow number. The daily one moved much harder: Mortgage News Daily's 30-year average went 6.89% to 6.97% to 7.07% over three sessions, the highest reading since May 2025. A seven handle is back on the board for the first time in sixteen months.

Behind it, the ten-year Treasury: 4.78% on 4 September, 4.95% by the 10th, easing to about 4.93% on Friday. It came within two basis points of five percent in a week, in a selloff that hit government bonds worldwide, not just ours.

Why it moved

Two inflation prints inside 24 hours, both worse than the market wanted.

Producer prices on Thursday: final demand up 0.4% in August and 5.4% over the year, with goods up 1.1% in the month. Consumer prices on Friday: up 0.4% in the month and 3.4% over the year, core up 0.3% and 2.4%.

One line explains most of it. Gasoline rose 3.9% in August and is up 27.4% over twelve months, and the BLS says gasoline alone accounted for more than a third of the monthly increase in the all-items index. Energy overall is up 16.3% on the year. This is not a services-and-wages inflation story that a patient Fed can look through. It is a supply shock showing up at the pump and working its way into everything that gets trucked.

What actually happens Tuesday and Wednesday

The FOMC meets 15 and 16 September, and it is one of the four meetings a year that publishes a Summary of Economic Projections, the dot plot. The target range is 3.50% to 3.75%, held there in July on a 9-3 vote, with three members already preferring a quarter-point increase before either of last week's prints existed.

Futures have repriced fast. CME's FedWatch had the odds of a September hike at 44.4% on 7 August and 60.6% on 8 September; after Thursday's PPI and Friday's CPI they ran to roughly 80%. Those are market odds, not a forecast, and they have been wrong before.

The dot plot is the part that matters to a borrower, not the decision itself. A quarter point on the funds rate is already in the ten-year. What is not priced is what the committee now thinks 2027 looks like. If the dots move up, the exit rate you are underwriting against moves with them.

What this does to a deal you are underwriting now

Your buyer is financed. Price the exit at his payment, not at yours.

Take the Houston median at $330,000, twenty percent down, a $264,000 loan. At 6.71% that is $1,705 a month in principal and interest. At 7.07% it is $1,769. Sixty-four dollars, in eight days.

Run it the other way and it stops looking small. Hold the payment at $1,705 and move the rate to 7.07%, and the same buyer now qualifies for a $254,500 loan instead of $264,000, which is about $318,000 of house instead of $330,000. Your exit buyer lost roughly $12,000 of budget while you were picking countertops. Against a year ago at 6.35%, the same payment has lost more than twice that.

Three consequences for a file being written this week:

• Underwrite the exit at today's rate, not the one you are hoping for. Anyone who penciled a spring flip on a rate cut arriving by then is now carrying that assumption as an unpriced risk.
• Rehab drag costs more than the carry. Every extra month is a month the exit rate can drift further up. The interest on the loan is the small part; the buyer's shrinking budget is the big part.
• The rental exit tightens first. A takeout that covered at 6.7% may not at 7.1%. On a $250,000 rental loan the payment goes from $1,615 to $1,675, and coverage is decided in the last sixty dollars. It is why our screen of 531 tenanted rentals for sale across three Texas markets found none that worked at the asking price.

Houston

The local picture has not changed and that is the point. August closed with 38,947 active listings, up just 0.5% on the year, and 5.3 months of supply, flat. Inventory is not surging. Sales are what fell, roughly 7,100 closings, down 11.5%, with the median at $330,000, off 1.5%, and days on market at 54 against 52.

The same pile of houses is sitting longer because fewer buyers can reach it. Last week made that worse by sixty-four dollars a month. Sellers with a three-percent note will not move on price to fix it, because their own payment is the floor, and days on market does not move a floor.

The week ahead

• Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16 September — FOMC, with the statement, the dot plot and the press conference on Wednesday afternoon.
• Thursday — Freddie Mac's weekly survey, which will finally catch up to where the daily rate already went.
• All week — the ten-year. It has been the whole story for a fortnight. If it holds above 4.90% the seven handle stays.

What we are financing

Nothing about last week changes what clears. It changes where the clearing price is. A purchase test that assumed a 6.7% exit needs rerunning at 7.1%, and the number that comes out is the number to write on the contract.

Both calculators on the site take the exit rate as an input, so the rerun is a two-minute job rather than a guess: the deal calculator for the flip, the DSCR calculator for the rental takeout, and the comparison between the two for the files that could go either way.

Sources

• Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, 10 September 2026
• Mortgage News Daily, 30-year fixed daily average, 10 September 2026
• FRED DGS10, 10-Year Treasury Constant Maturity Rate
• BLS Consumer Price Index, August 2026
• BLS Producer Price Index, August 2026
• FOMC calendar and July 2026 statement

Market data is from public sources and is provided for information only. Nothing here is an offer of credit, a rate quote, or investment advice. Financing is subject to underwriting, lender approval, appraisal or valuation, title, insurance, property eligibility and program availability.

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