Mortgage rates have been the biggest weight on the housing market for years.
The latest weekly read pushed the 30-year fixed to a 5-week high - exactly the kind of move that usually scares buyers off.
This time, they showed up anyway.
The average 30-year fixed rate on conforming loans (those at or below $832,750) rose to 6.46% from 6.45% the prior week. Small move on its own, but rates have already climbed 14 basis points just since the start of this week, per a separate Mortgage News Daily survey.
Even with that, total mortgage applications rose 1.7% from the week before. Applications to buy a home jumped 4% week over week and were 7% higher than the same week one year ago.
MBA economist Joel Kan said buyers "shrugged off the current economic and mortgage rate uncertainties and returned to the market." On a call this week, National Association of Realtors chief economist Lawrence Yun added that agents are reporting a wave of fresh buyer demand in just the last few weeks.
Part of that is timing. Spring is the busiest stretch of the year for home sales, and buyers who paused during the early weeks of the war are now coming back in.
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Two things drove the rate spike at the start of this week:
When inflation runs hot or geopolitics get messy, bond investors demand higher yields to lend money. Mortgage rates ride on top of those yields, so any move in Treasuries shows up at the closing table.
Refinances told a different story: applications fell 1% on the week but were still up 28% year over year. They made up just over 40% of all mortgage activity, the lowest share since July 2025.
The spring market started slow this year. Buyer demand stalled when the Iran war began in late February, and it's only now starting to thaw.
Buyer demand stalled when the war started, and it's stirring again. The question is whether the spring market can hold its momentum if rates keep climbing from here.
The next CPI print and any news on the war will tell us a lot. For housing stocks and homebuilders, the read on buyer demand matters even more than the rate itself, because a stronger spring season can lift earnings even with rates near 6.5%.
A few extra weeks of strong purchase activity would also reset expectations for the rest of 2026 - and reset the conversation around what "normal" rates look like.
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