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The average 30-year mortgage rate has declined a bit recently, with an average rate of 6.87% according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s latest weekly data. This is down from 7.00% the week before and is significantly lower than the 7.90% peak that occurred in October 2023.
While this is certainly a welcome relief for many prospective home buyers, the reality is that mortgage rates are still more than double where they were at the beginning of 2022. However, many buyers end up getting mortgage rates significantly lower than the national average.
With that in mind, here are two big ways to find the absolute best 30-year mortgage rates available today.
1. Rate shopping is the best (and most overlooked) method
One of the biggest mistakes home buyers make is applying for one mortgage loan and accepting whatever rate and terms are offered.
Here’s one very important point: There is absolutely no way for me to definitively say what lender has the best 30-year mortgage rate today or what it is.
There’s a good reason for this. Lenders have different methods of evaluating mortgage applications, and the best rate I get offered could come from an entirely different lender than where you’ll find your lowest mortgage rate.
Because of this, an essential step if you want to find the lowest 30-year mortgage rate is to shop around. I don’t mean simply visiting the websites of a few lenders and seeing what their lowest advertised rates are — I mean actually filling out a pre-approval application and getting personalized rate offers.
You might be surprised at the difference in rates that are offered to the exact same borrower by a few different mortgage lenders. A seemingly small difference in rates can save you thousands of dollars in interest over the life of a mortgage loan, so it’s worth taking a couple hours of your time and shopping around.
2. Boosting your credit can make a big difference in your mortgage rate
The 6.87% average 30-year mortgage rate, as the name suggests, applies to the average borrower. While there’s no set definition of what an average borrower is, one smart way to get a better mortgage rate is to make yourself look like an above-average borrower in the eyes of lenders.
One smart way to do this is to work on your credit score. According to credit scoring website myFICO.com, the average borrower with a 640–659 FICO® Score gets a 7.28% rate on a 30-year mortgage. But someone with a 760 or higher gets a rate of just 6.237%. On a $400,000 loan, this would mean a difference of $278 per month. Over the life of the loan, this translates to a stunning $100,080 in interest savings for the excellent-credit borrower.
There are several steps you can take to boost your credit score, but our guide to the FICO® Score is a great place to get started. Here are a few things you can do:
- Try to keep your credit card balances below 30% of your available credit (lower is even better).
- Avoid closing old, unused credit cards.
- Only apply for new credit if you really need it.
- Most importantly, pay all of your bills on time, every month.
The bottom line
As you can probably gather, finding the best 30-year mortgage rate isn’t easy. There are a lot of variables that lenders use to offer you a mortgage rate, and different lenders use them in different ways. That said, by shopping around and working to maximize your credit score, you’ll put yourself in a great position to get the best 30-year mortgage rate that is available to you.
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