Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey®

Freddie Mac surveys lender data weekly to find the average rate of mortgage loans submitted to them by banks, credit unions, and mortgage companies. They look at rates for conventional, single-family originations with conforming loan limits as set by FHFA and are an average of loan rates offered Thursday through Wednesday each week. They do not include points and fees in their calculations or published data. The Primary Mortgage Market Survey has evolved into the foremost reliable, representative source of regional and national mortgage rate trends and is relied upon by the mortgage industry and the public in gauging market conditions and evaluating mortgage loan options.

The mortgage rate gathering process was updated on November 17th, 2022. (see historical methodology below) Instead of getting the data from reaching out to lenders, they now use data from their Loan Product Advisor^®(LPA^SM). Therefore, the PMMS^® results are now based on the mortgage rates collected from thousands of loan applications submitted to Freddie Mac from lenders across the country when a borrower actually applies for a mortgage.

The PMMS^® is published each Thursday at noon eastern time. When a U.S. holiday falls on a Thursday, the PMMS^® will publish on the Wednesday of that week. The week of application activity starts at 12:00 a.m. eastern time the prior Thursday and lasts through 11:59 p.m. eastern time Wednesday.

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Historical Mortgage Rate Survey Methodology (before November 17, 2022)

Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®)  before November 17, 2022, would survey lenders each week for rates and points on their most popular 30-year fixed-rate, 15-year fixed-rate, 5/1 hybrid amortizing adjustable-rate, and 1-year amortizing adjustable rate mortgage products. The survey was based on first-lien prime conventional conforming mortgages with a loan-to-value of 80 percent.  In addition, the adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) products were indexed to constant-maturity U.S. Treasury rates and lenders were asked for both the initial coupon rate and points as well as the margin on the ARM products. The survey was most usually collected from Monday through Wednesday and the results were posted on Thursdays.

Essentially, Freddie Mac would manually survery 125 lenders each week and ask for that week’s most frequently quoted home loan rates, along with the associated points and loan fees.  Mortgage lenders were surveyed from Thursday to the following Wednesday, but lenders tended to respond Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  For borrowers, it was a great barometer of recent mortgage loan rates.  Although, the survey had to be taken for what it was.  It was an average of what lenders said they were predominately quoting for the previous week.  It did not (and still does not) report mortgage rates as of a particular day, nor did it report interest rates for approved or closed loans (which is still the situation.)

If you are looking for mortgage rates and home loans, they can be found at https://www.moneycafe.com/mortgage-rates/

Reasonable efforts are made to maintain accurate information. However, information could contain errors or inaccuracies and is presented without warranty. No liability is assumed for errors or omissions.