We’ve got about 30 days left in the year before we ring in 2026.
In my 2025 mortgage rate predictions post, I called for a 5.875% 30-year fixed by the fourth quarter.
That hasn’t been delivered, yet, but there is still time, and a decent amount of it to boot.
Mortgage rates can change daily, just like stocks, so another four weeks means there’s still a chance.
But the clock is ticking, there’s no denying that. I’ll lay out a scenario for how we could get there.
For Mortgage Rates It Remains Mostly About Jobs Right Now
If you want a primer on how mortgage rates are determined, check out that post.
I spent a lot of time laying out how it all works, and what to look for to determine if rates will move higher or lower.
The short version of the question is that bad economic news tends to lead to lower mortgage rates. And good economic news tends to lead to higher mortgage rates.
So the reason mortgage rates have had a good year in 2025, falling from around 7.25% in January to 6.25% today, has been a slowing economy.
That includes softer inflation, which was the prime suspect in recent years (an economy running too hot). And labor, which includes thing like hiring, wages, and unemployment rates.
Lately, it’s been mostly about labor after inflation finally seemed to subside after a brutal few years.
We kept hearing about how the job market was robust, but that all began to change a few months ago.
The August jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics came in at 22,000, well below the forecast for 75,000 new jobs.
At the same time, the already poor June numbers were revised down by 27,000 to a negative (yes negative) 13,000.
That pushed the 30-year fixed to around 6.125%, just an eighth above 6%, but then the Fed cut again and mortgage rates did their typical sell the news dance.
No, the Fed doesn’t set mortgage rates and the correlation is weak, but lately mortgage rates seem to love to bounce on Fed cut days.
More Bad Jobs Data Was Released Today from ADP
Anyway, we finally got the delayed September jobs report on November 20th, and while it showed a surprise to the upside (119k jobs vs. 50k forecast), July was revised down by 7,000 to 72,000, and August was revised down to a negative 4,000.
So yet another negative monthly print and yet more revisions, which makes you wonder if September’s numbers will stay as good as they were.
On top of that, we saw the unemployment rate rise to 4.4%, the highest level since 2021.
Today, we got even more confirmation that labor is cracking thanks to the monthly ADP jobs report.
It revealed that private employers actually cut 32,000 jobs in the month of November, well below the forecast of 50,000 jobs created.
While ADP isn’t treated as highly as the BLS jobs report, it does kind of reinforce that labor isn’t looking so hot.
And it was enough for the 30-year fixed to fall seven basis points (bps) today to 6.23%, per Mortgage News Daily.
We’ll also get the November jobs report from the BLS on Tuesday December 16th, originally scheduled for Friday December 5th.
If that’s bad as well, things could get interesting on the mortgage rate front.
Inflation Still Matters to Mortgage Rates Too
But it’s not just about jobs. We still have inflation to consider, and as noted, it’s largely why mortgage rates jumped back in 2022 from sub-3% to 8% by late 2023, before coming back down some.
To that end, we’ve got the delayed Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) report for September this Friday, and the ever-important CPI report for November on December 18th.
Those reports have the power to move mortgage rates as well. And if they come in cooler-than-expected, mortgage rates could inch closer to the 5s.
In other words, there’s still a lot of economic data to come this month, before the end of the year. So despite only having about 30 days left, there’s plenty that can affect mortgage rates.
And seeing that they’re only 24 bps away from the 5s, it’s certainly a reasonable possibility to get there.
For the record, Freddie Mac’s weekly mortgage rate survey has the 30-year fixed at a similar 6.23%.
Meaning both MND and Freddie Mac could go sub-6% this year, though it’s harder for Freddie because their data is delayed (the problem with mortgage rate surveys).
Ultimately, it would likely take a combination of both lower inflation and more bad jobs data to get us to a 30-year fixed that starts with a 5 in 2025.
Both are real possibilities. As such, at least in my eyes, a sub-6% mortgage rate in 2025 is still in play.
Read on: How to track mortgage rates.
Before creating this site, I worked as an account executive for a wholesale mortgage lender in Los Angeles. My hands-on experience in the early 2000s inspired me to begin writing about mortgages 19 years ago to help prospective (and existing) home buyers better navigate the home loan process. Follow me on X for hot takes.
