
Ever wonder why mortgage interest rates sometimes don’t decrease when the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates and vice versa? The simple answer is that the Fed does not control mortgage interest rates.
Instead, the Federal Reserve controls the Fed Funds Rate (FFR), which is an overnight interbank lending rate. An overnight rate is the shortest lending term, which means shorter duration lending rates such as credit card interest rates and short-term car loan interest rates will be affected.
However, mortgage rates have longer duration lending terms. Therefore, longer duration U.S. Treasury bond yields have a far greater influence on mortgage interest rates than the FFR.