Summer Is Over: What Buyers Can Realistically Expect This Fall After Rates Surge to 2026 High

Last week, mortgage rates spiked to their highest level in over a year. Fresh conflict in the Middle East sparked renewed inflation worries, triggering a massive sell-off in global bond markets and pushing borrowing costs up.

According to Freddie Mac, the average 30-year fixed rate ticked up from 6.66% to 6.71%—the highest mark since late July 2025. To put that in perspective, buyers were looking at an average of 6.50% this time last year.

Mortgage rates along with seasonality have long shaped the housing market, and with autumn just around the corner, many prospective buyers may have hoped that the fall season would bring about less competition and better prices. 

The good news is, both of those may still turn out to be true. But when it comes to mortgage rates, the Realtor.com® economists foresee a stalled-out road ahead. 

Mortgage rates through the end of 2026

Heading into the fall selling season, both Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale and senior economist Jake Krimmel agree that rates will likely stay in the 6% range through the end of the year, echoing their midyear forecast.

“Rates are now running above their 2025 levels, and that looks set to continue through the end of 2026, erasing the financing advantage buyers had counted on for most of this year,” says Hale.

Hale points to the “usual set of forces” driving the late summer rate surge. 

“Inflation remains higher than the Fed or financial markets would like, and conflict in the Middle East continues to deliver supply shocks and economic uncertainty.”

Krimmel agrees, noting also that the markets “now expect the Fed to start hiking this fall, potentially as soon as their September meeting.”

“Through the end of 2026, there is clearly more upward pressure on mortgage rates than downward. Whether or not the first Fed hike comes later this month, it may not be a one-off, and while the Fed controls only short-term interest rates, some pass through to longer-term rates and eventually mortgage rates is likely.”

So, what seems realistic for the next four months? Perhaps a dip, but not a significant one.

“For the year to average 6.3% mortgage rates at this point, rates would need to average below 6.2% for the rest of 2026,” Krimmel says. “That's almost certainly off the table. Even getting to 6.3% by the end of the year is a stretch at the current spread between the 10-year Treasury and the Freddie Mac Rate."

Selling your home this fall

After Labor Day, with kids back to school and the upcoming holidays top of mind, real estate agents have often pointed to the autumn season as a great time for buyer to find deals. 

“The final months of the year can be an extremely advantageous time frame for home purchasers,” Leo Pond, a real estate adviser at Four Seasons Sotheby’s International Realty, previously told Realtor.com. “Seasonal sellers who listed in the spring and have hung around the market until this time are generally anxious to sell, and the ones who don’t have to sell this year generally pull their home off the market.”

But this season could look different, given the mortgage rates. 

“Seasonality doesn't affect mortgage rates, but mortgage rates absolutely affect housing market seasonality," explains Krimmel.

He points to the past two years as examples.  

“There were mortgage rate dips in both 2024 and 2025, about 32 and 24 basis points from the August to the September average, but that was about the Fed entering a cutting cycle, not anything about the time of year itself. Conversely, the two Septembers before that went the other way, with mortgage rates up 89 basis points in 2022 and up 13 in 2023.

“Housing supply and demand follow seasonal trends, generally, and rate swings—though it interacts with supply and demand—are independent of the seasons,” he adds.

“It's almost how weather impacts the timing of a farmer's harvest. A warm stretch extends the growing season for farmers, and rates falling this time of year can extend the selling season. That's exactly what happened last year, when rates were falling and demand picked up in the fall. No such luck this year, and in fact, we are seeing the opposite. Rate conditions mean this selling season might shut up shop sooner.”

But waiting for next year may not pay off either. 

“For 2027 and beyond, watch macroeconomic conditions," advises Hale. “Whether and how quickly inflation responds to inevitable Fed hikes, and whether we move toward resolution not only on the conflict itself but also on trade policy more broadly, from the Strait of Hormuz to tariffs.”