Mortgage rates – Every Thursday, Freddie Mac publishes interest rates based on a survey of mortgage lenders throughout the week. The Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Survey reported that mortgage rates for the most popular loan products as of January 22, 2026, were as follows:
The 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 6.09%, up slightly from 6.06% last week. The 15-year fixed was 5.44%, up from 5.38% last week.
The graph below shows the trajectory of mortgage rates over the past year.
Stock Markets and most prominent financial news of the week - It was another wild week for stocks, bond markets, and interest rates. It began with stock markets, which were close on Monday for Martin Luther King Day, dropping over 2% on Tuesday when new tariffs on Europe were announced to begin on February 1 over the Greenland controversy. Stock markets dropped over 2%, their biggest one-day drop since tariffs were first announced on April 2, 2025. Bond yields and interest rates also rose. Fortunately, the “framework of a deal” was announced on Thursday and stock markets recovered much of their losses.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the week at 49,098.71, down 0.5% from 49,359.33 last week. It is already up 2.2% from 48,063.29 on December 31, 2025. The S&P 500 closed the week at 6,915.71, down 0.4% from 6,940.01 last week. The S&P is up 1% from 6,845.50 on December 31, 2025. The Nasdaq closed the week at 23,501.24, down 0.1% from 23,515.39 last week. It is up 1.1% from 23,241.99 on December 31, 2024.
The 10-year treasury bond closed the week yielding 4.24%, unchanged from 4.24% last week. The 30-year treasury bond yield ended the week at 4.82%, almost unchanged from 4.83% last week. We watch bond yields because mortgage rates follow bond yields.
Home sales figures are released on the third week of the month for the previous month from the National Association of Realtors and the California Association of Realtors. Here is a summary of the December existing home sales reports.
U.S. existing-home sales – December 2025 – The National Association of Realtors reported that existing-home sales totaled 4.35 million units on a seasonally adjusted annualized rate in November, up 5.1% from the number of homes sold in November and up 1.4% from the number of homes sold last December. The median price paid for a home sold in the U.S. in November was $404,400, down slightly from $409,200 in November , but up 0.4% from $403,700 one year ago.
California existing-home sales – The California Association of Realtors reported that existing-home sales totaled 288,200 on an annualized basis in December, up 2% from a revised 282,490 last December. The statewide median price paid for a home in was $850,680 in December, down 0.4% from $855,680 in November. The statewide median price peaked at $910,160 in April before falling steadily each month to end the year down 7% from its peak. Year-over-year the median price dropped 1.3% from $861,020 on December 31, 2024.
