New York, Feb 10, 2026, 06:18 EST — Premarket
Early Tuesday, U.S. mortgage rates barely budged ahead of the Wall Street open. Bankrate’s national average for a 30-year fixed mortgage held at 6.28%.
Bankrate’s latest survey put the annual percentage rate (APR), factoring in lender fees, at 6.34%. For 15-year fixed mortgages, the average came in at 5.57%. Thirty-year fixed refinance rates? Those hit 6.55%.
Timing is key here: buyers remain pinched by steep prices as the spring selling season approaches, while many homeowners hang back, unwilling to part with their low-rate, earlier mortgages.
Mortgage rates aren’t tethered directly to the Federal Reserve’s policy moves. Instead, they tend to track the bond market, with a particular focus on Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities — those bonds backed by pools of home loans that lenders lean on for hedging.
On Monday, Mortgage News Daily’s daily index pegged top-tier 30-year fixed mortgage rates at 6.16%. That’s just a one basis point rise—a move of one-hundredth of a percentage point—for the day.
Matthew Graham at Mortgage News Daily called Wednesday’s postponed jobs report “orders of magnitude more important” than last week’s lesser employment releases. Mortgage News Daily
Optimal Blue’s lock data put the average 30-year conforming mortgage at 6.083%—roughly two basis points lower than a day earlier.
Loans locked as of Feb. 6 are shown in the snapshot, Fortune noted, meaning it doesn’t always keep pace with daily shifts in the bond market.
Treasury yields, which directly affect mortgage rates, slipped on Monday. The 10-year finished at 4.189%, a drop of 0.019 percentage point, after reaching as high as 4.249% during the session, according to Mortgage News Daily data.
Rocket Companies, one of the top U.S. mortgage originators, climbed 3.8% to $19.61 ahead of the open. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF tacked on 0.5%.
The iShares MBS ETF—often used as a stand-in for agency mortgage-backed securities—ended the day unchanged. The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF slipped just slightly.
Tuesday brings more numbers for traders to digest—employment cost index, plus import and export prices—due out at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.
Wednesday should bring the postponed January jobs report. Looking ahead to Friday, the January consumer price index is on deck. But the Labor Department has flagged that these release dates might shift if government services are disrupted.
Any sign of rising wages or inflation could drive long-term yields up—taking mortgage rates along, Fed pause or not. That would hit affordability and tamp down on refinance demand.
Policy still looms large. President Donald Trump is pushing for lower mortgage rates, yet his Fed nominee, Kevin Warsh, has taken aim at the central bank’s bond holdings — and economists warn borrowing costs could rise if that portfolio unwinds more quickly.
“If all he does is move to a smaller Fed balance sheet, it’s hard to see how that would be consistent with lower mortgage rates,” Yale professor and former Fed official Bill English said to The Washington Post. The Washington Post
