Mortgage Rates Today, October 21, 2026 (index as of Oct 21 close)

Today’s index numbers

All four readings below come from the Mortgage News Daily rate index on the same day, so they can be compared with each other.

• 30-year fixed: 7.40% (+0.00 on the day), Mortgage News Daily, as of October 21, 2026
• 15-year fixed: 7.04% (-0.01 on the day), Mortgage News Daily, as of October 21, 2026
• 30-year FHA: 7.05% (+0.03 on the day), Mortgage News Daily, as of October 21, 2026
• 30-year VA: 7.06% (+0.02 on the day), Mortgage News Daily, as of October 21, 2026

Freddie Mac weekly survey: 7.40%, survey dated Oct 15. A weekly national survey of purchase applications, so it lags the daily index above.

Also today: the jumbo reading on the same Mortgage News Daily index came in at 7.65%, unchanged on the day, and the 7/6 SOFR adjustable rate came in at 6.82%, up 0.02. The Federal Reserve’s target range for the federal funds rate is 3.75% to 4.00% following the quarter point increase on September 16, and the next scheduled meeting is October 28. The 10-year Treasury yield is near 5.12% as of this writing, up about a basis point on the day, with the 2-year near 4.82%, up about three. The economic calendar was empty today: no scheduled federal release landed between yesterday’s housing starts report and tomorrow morning. Weekly initial jobless claims arrive Thursday at 8:30 AM Eastern, where the consensus is around 200,000 against 199,000 the week before, and the S&P Global purchasing managers indexes for October follow Friday at 9:45 AM.

These are national survey and index averages, not an offer.

What moved rates

Very little moved, which is itself the story of the day. The daily 30-year index closed unchanged at 7.40% at today’s close, the fifth straight session it has either eased or held, and Mortgage News Daily describes rates as holding in line with their best levels in nearly a month. The 15-year reading slipped a basis point to 7.04% while the FHA and VA readings gave back two and three basis points of last week’s improvement, which is ordinary drift inside a quiet session rather than a shift in direction.

Per Mortgage News Daily, the session did not finish flat because nothing happened in it. Rates opened slightly better and then gave the improvement back on mid-day weakness in the underlying bond market, and Mortgage News Daily attributes that intraday move to trader positioning in the Treasury options market rather than to news, while noting that war related headlines happened to coincide with the timing. In its morning commentary Mortgage News Daily adds that the tech sector narrative has kept the market in this week’s lull, with investors waiting for the next catalyst rather than pushing yields back toward their recent highs.

That leaves the market in a holding pattern that is unlikely to break on its own. Mortgage News Daily frames what comes next as some combination of the tech sector story, incoming economic data, and the Fed’s policy stance, and notes that the Fed’s stance is itself largely a function of the data. For this week the data calendar is thin, so the two scheduled items that could disturb the quiet are tomorrow’s jobless claims and Friday’s purchasing managers indexes, neither of which is usually a market mover on its own. The Fed meets October 28.

For a borrower, a flat day after a four session drift lower means the improvement of the last week is still intact and nothing has been given back at the headline level. Today’s figure is a daily index reading at the end of one session, not a live quote and not a forecast, and what any individual file prices at is a separate question from where the index sits.

What it means if you are…

Shopping. The index has now held or eased for five sessions and sits at 7.40%, roughly a tenth of a percent better than the middle of last week. Stability is worth something when you are trying to write an offer: the budget you ran on Monday is still the budget you have today. What you actually pay still turns on your credit profile, the loan amount, the property type and the occupancy, so the only number that tells you anything about your own payment is one run on your own file. A quiet market is a reasonable week to get that done rather than to wait and watch.

Refinancing. The government readings are still on the better side of the table, though by less than yesterday. FHA at 7.05% and VA at 7.06% both sit under the 7.40% conventional index, and that spread has held through October even as it narrowed a little today. If your current loan is FHA or VA, the comparison that decides anything is your existing note rate against what your own loan type prices at now, not against the headline conventional figure. The refinance savings check on this site will run the arithmetic on your actual balance and term.

Under contract. A day with no net change does not move a closing date or a lock. If your rate is not locked yet, it is worth asking your lender where your lock stands and what an extension would cost if your closing slides. If it is locked, the quiet is useful mainly because it removes a reason to keep checking.

What a $400,000 loan looks like at today’s average

At 7.40%, the monthly rate is 7.40% divided by 12, or 0.616667%. On a $400,000 loan amortized over 360 months, principal and interest work out to about $2,770 a month. Because the index closed unchanged, that is the same figure as yesterday to the dollar.

These figures exclude property taxes, homeowners insurance, flood insurance, mortgage insurance and any association dues; the actual monthly obligation will be greater.

Florida note

If you are shopping the newer subdivisions around Tampa, and particularly in Pasco, eastern Hillsborough, Polk or Manatee counties, there is a line item that can add a few hundred dollars a month to a house whose list price looked affordable, and it is not the homeowners association. It is the community development district, or CDD. A CDD is a special purpose unit of local government created under Chapter 190 of the Florida Statutes, and developers use them to finance the roads, water and sewer lines, stormwater systems, street lighting and amenities inside a new community by issuing tax exempt bonds rather than carrying those costs in the lot price. The cost does not disappear; it is assessed back to the homes. There are two separate pieces, and they behave differently. The debt service assessment repays the bonds, is generally a fixed amount for the life of the bond issue, often twenty to thirty years, and in many districts can be paid off in a lump sum if you want the house to carry no bond. The operations and maintenance assessment pays the district’s annual budget for upkeep of what the bonds built, is set each year at a public hearing, can move up or down with that budget, and never ends. Both are non ad valorem assessments, which means they are not calculated from your assessed value and your homestead exemption does not reduce them, and under the uniform method in Section 197.3632 of the Florida Statutes they are collected on the same annual bill your county tax collector mails in November, enforceable the same way the taxes themselves are. Three practical consequences follow. First, underwriting counts the full annual CDD amount in your monthly housing expense, exactly like taxes and insurance, so a $2,400 a year district assessment is $200 a month against your qualifying ratios whether or not anyone mentioned it at the model home. Second, that amount belongs in your escrow account, and an escrow estimate built from an unimproved lot’s prior year tax bill will understate it badly, which is a common reason a first escrow analysis after closing on new construction produces an unwelcome increase. Third, the number is verifiable before you write an offer: the district publishes its adopted budget and assessment roll, the county tax collector’s parcel search shows the prior year’s non ad valorem lines for an existing home, and Florida law requires the seller of a home inside a CDD to disclose it. Ask for the current debt service and operations figures separately, ask how many years remain on the bond, and ask whether the seller has prepaid it, because a prepaid bond is a genuine difference in monthly cost between two otherwise identical houses on the same street.

Rates shown could change or may not be available at commitment or closing. For a quote on your own scenario, use the rate-quote form on this page.

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