Without a shadow of a doubt, mortgage rates are noticeably higher today than they were yesterday.  They were also noticeably higher yesterday compared to Tuesday.  Finally and most importantly for the purposes of this article, today’s rates are incontrovertibly higher than they were at the end of last week (that’s true both for Thursday or Friday).  In other words, whether we’re looking at today’s rates versus yesterday, the end of last week, or simply on a week-over-week basis, they’re HIGHER.  Whose rates?  Pretty much every lenders’.  I don’t see any exceptions to the above across the scores of rate sheets I review every day to generate the MND rate index.  Those rate sheets cover 95% of the market, conservatively.  More importantly, as long as you understand that mortgage rates are primarily based on the value of mortgage-backed securities in the secondary market, this is just simple math.  Today’s MBS prices are lower than any of the previous 4 business days (lower prices = higher rates). Now For the Big Question: Why are there so many headlines in the news regarding a massive drop in mortgage rates? Answer:  Far too many reporters rely on Freddie Mac’s weekly mortgage rate survey as their single source of mortgage rate information.  During more normal times, this strategy is good enough.  The mainstream consumer of financial news doesn’t particularly need a new update on rates every day (unless they’re home shopping).  And Freddie’s data does a great job of capturing the broad, long-term trends in rates.