The 30-Year Hit 7.40% on Its Seventh Straight Weekly Rise. The Ten-Year Fell That Same Week.

By Steve Waller · October 9, 2026

The number

Freddie Mac's 30-year fixed-rate average came in at 7.40% on Thursday, October 8, up from 7.28% the week before and 6.30% a year ago. That is the seventh consecutive weekly increase and the highest the survey has printed since November 16, 2023, when it averaged 7.44%. The 15-year average is 6.73%, up from 6.60% and from 5.53% a year ago.

The lender survey is running ahead of it. The Mortgage Bankers Association put the average contract rate on a 30-year fixed conforming loan at 7.49% for the week ending October 2, up from 7.30% the week before. If your exit buyer gets a quote next week, 7.49% is closer to what they will be shown than 7.40% is.

The part worth noticing

The 10-year Treasury did not rise this week. It closed at 5.22% on October 8, after printing 5.31% on Monday the 5th and 5.29% on September 30. The benchmark eased about 7 basis points over the week while the mortgage average rose 12.

That puts the spread between the 30-year mortgage and the 10-year at 218 basis points, against 204 a week earlier. One honest caveat before anyone reads too much into it: the weekly survey is an average collected through midweek, so part of Thursday's 7.40% is the market repricing to Monday's 5.31%, not to Thursday's 5.22%. The spread a year ago on the same calendar day was 217 basis points, so by that standard 218 is ordinary, not a dislocation.

What is not ordinary is the direction. The number that prices your exit buyer's mortgage went up while the number that prices long-term rental debt came down. If 5.22% holds, next Thursday's survey is where you would expect to see it.

What the week cost the buyer who takes your house

Houston's median single-family sale was $330,000 in August. An 80% loan on that is $264,000.

Principal and interest on $264,000 over 30 years:

• At 7.40% today: $1,828 a month.
• At 7.28% last Thursday: $1,806 a month.
• At 6.30% a year ago: $1,634 a month.

So the same house costs your buyer $22 a month more than it did last Thursday and $194 a month more than it did a year ago.

Now run it the direction that decides your exit. Hold the payment at last year's $1,634 and ask what it finances at 7.40%. The answer is $236,010, which is $27,990 less mortgage than the $264,000 that payment carried a year ago. On an 80% loan that is roughly $35,000 less house. Last Thursday at 7.28% the same calculation gave $31,465. The gap widened by about $3,500 of reachable price in one week.

Two reference figures to keep: every 25 basis points from here adds $45 a month on that loan, and every $100 a month of payment is worth about $14,400 of mortgage at today's rate.

Measure that against the margin you are actually working with

ATTOM's second-quarter report put the typical gross flipping margin in Houston at 3.7%. On a $330,000 resale that is about $12,210 of gross profit, before renovation spend, before financing cost, before the roughly 7% that selling costs take out.

The $3,500 of buyer purchasing power that disappeared this week is 29% of that entire gross margin. It was taken out by a twelve-basis-point move in a survey average, on a week when the benchmark rate fell, by a mechanism no investor on this list controls.

The national picture behind that Houston figure: flips were 6.2% of all US home sales in the second quarter, down from 7.3% a year earlier; typical gross profit was $60,526 against $71,000; the typical margin was 21.5% against 27.6%; and the average flip took 161 days. Dallas printed 1.8%, Austin 2.8%, Houston 3.7%, and San Antonio a 0.3% loss. Four Texas metros, none of them above four percent gross.

Where the demand data sits

The application survey for the week ending October 2 says the buyer pool is still contracting. Total applications fell 4.2% week over week. Purchase applications fell 2% and were 15% below the same week a year ago. Refinance applications fell 8% and were 56% below a year ago, with refinances down to 37.0% of all applications from 38.3% the week before.

Houston's own supply has not moved much. The market ended August with 38,947 active single-family listings, up 0.5% year over year, 5.3 months of inventory, and average days on market at 54. Closings were down 11.5%. Supply flat, demand down double digits: the months of inventory on the board came from the buyer side, which means the seller you are negotiating with has the weaker hand, not you.

The one place this week helps

Long-term rental financing is priced off the 10-year, and the 10-year came down. That is a few basis points, not a reprieve, and it sits against a benchmark that is up about 109 basis points from 4.13% a year ago and about 103 from 4.19% on the first trading day of January. But it moved in your favor this week, and the retail mortgage did not.

At the margin that tilts the flip-versus-rent question toward the hold, because the resale exit got more expensive to reach and the refinance exit got very slightly cheaper. Run both before you commit. Do not run either on a rate from the spring.

What to do with it this week

• Rebuild the exit price from your buyer's payment, not from a comparable sale. Start with the monthly payment your target buyer can carry, work backward at 7.40%, and compare the result with the after-repair value in your spreadsheet. On a median Houston house the spring-comped figure is carrying about $35,000 of error, and the error is not in your favor.
• Put the difference in the offer, not in the hope. Purchase price is the only input you control outright and the only one that stays with you for the whole hold. A seller at 54 days on a market with 5.3 months of supply has more reason to move than you have to meet the list.
• Price the carry at 161 days, not at your plan. That is the national average time to flip in the latest data, and it is the window your exit buyer's rate has to be forecast across. A deal that only works if you sell in 90 days is a deal with no margin for the market you are in.
• If the plan is a rental takeout, get a current quote before you are under contract. A debt-service coverage figure modeled against spring pricing is not what the file will be approved against now. The 10-year is a hundred basis points higher than it was in January and the coverage test moved with it.

What we are watching

• Next Thursday's rate survey, for whether the 10-year's pullback to 5.22% shows up as the first weekly decline in eight weeks, or whether the streak reaches eight.
• The Houston Association of Realtors' September report, due within days, for whether days on market pushed past 54 and whether the median held $330,000.
• The Census Bureau's September construction release in mid-October, for whether August's 27.1% year-over-year collapse in completions was one print or a trend.
• The weekly application survey, for whether purchase demand stabilizes above the 15% year-over-year deficit.

Sources

• U.S. Department of the Treasury, Daily Treasury Par Yield Curve Rates, October 2026
• Freddie Mac, Primary Mortgage Market Survey, 8 October 2026
• Mortgage Bankers Association, Weekly Applications Survey, week ending 2 October 2026
• ATTOM, Q2 2026 U.S. Home Flipping Report
• Houston Association of Realtors, Monthly Housing Update, August 2026

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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