Bad News: Interest rates haven't been this high since 2001. See Chart 1 below.
Good News: 7.73% is the average interest rate over the past 30 years. So current rates are not so bad, based on historical data.
Reality News: Rates will come down before the Presidential election.
More good news: Rates have been dropping. See Graph 1 below.
30-year fixed-rate mortgage trends over time
For some perspective on today’s mortgage interest rates, here’s how average 30-year rates have changed from year to year over the past five decades.
| Year | Average 30-Year Rate | Year | Average 30-Year Rate | Year | Average 30-Year Rate |
| 1976 | 8.87% | 1992 | 8.39% | 2008 | 6.03% |
| 1977 | 8.85% | 1993 | 7.31% | 2009 | 5.04% |
| 1978 | 9.64% | 1994 | 8.38% | 2010 | 4.69% |
| 1979 | 11.20% | 1995 | 7.93% | 2011 | 4.45% |
| 1980 | 13.74% | 1996 | 7.81% | 2012 | 3.66% |
| 1981 | 16.63% | 1997 | 7.60% | 2013 | 3.98% |
| 1982 | 16.04% | 1998 | 6.94% | 2014 | 4.17% |
| 1983 | 13.24% | 1999 | 7.44% | 2015 | 3.85% |
| 1984 | 13.88% | 2000 | 8.05% | 2016 | 3.65% |
| 1985 | 12.43% | 2001 | 6.97% | 2017 | 3.99% |
| 1986 | 10.19% | 2002 | 6.54% | 2018 | 4.54% |
| 1987 | 10.21% | 2003 | 5.83% | 2019 | 3.94% |
| 1988 | 10.34% | 2004 | 5.84% | 2020 | 3.10% |
| 1989 | 10.32% | 2005 | 5.87% | 2021 | 2.96% |
| 1990 | 10.13% | 2006 | 6.41% | 2022 | 5.34% |
| 1991 | 9.25% | 2007 | 6.34% | 2023 | 6.81% |
