30Y Mortgage Rate

The 30-year mortgage rate is the rate that actually matters for the consumer side of monetary policy — not the Fed Funds Rate that gets quoted on the news, not the 10-year Treasury that drives bond portfolios, but the rate a real buyer signs on a real house. Because the median household's mortgage payment is the single biggest line item in their budget, a 100 bp move here is the most elastic lever the Fed has on consumer demand: every percentage point translates to roughly $250/month on a $400K home, which is 12% of the monthly payment. That's why the Fed's tightening cycles transmit to the broader economy through housing first, and why this card is the cleanest read on whether the rate-sensitive part of the consumer economy is being squeezed or relieved. Pair with Building Permits and Months' Supply: when mortgage rates climb, builder permits drop and supply piles up — you can see the cause-and-effect chain in real time across the three cards. Watch zones to keep in mind: under ~5% historically supports robust new-home demand and existing-home churn; 5-6% is the post-2008 normal that buyers had calibrated to; over 7% is where lock-in effects dominate (existing borrowers from 2020-22 sitting on 3-4% notes won't move, freezing inventory) and new buyers are priced out of the market they were shopping at lower rates. Direction-of-travel matters as much as the level — a 4 pp move in 18 months (which is what 2022-23 delivered) is more disruptive than a stable 7% would be, because budgets and home prices can adjust to a level over time but cannot absorb that pace of change.