Two mortgage headlines, two different clocks

You can open two reputable mortgage charts on a Thursday and see two different 30-year rates. One might say 6.55 percent. The other might say 6.72 percent. Both publishers did their job. They are measuring different things, on different schedules, with different assumptions about the borrower.

Index names belong to their publishers. We show public series so you can see the weather. Your lender's disclosure is the only rate that applies to you.

A weekly survey average and a daily lock tape

Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey, usually called PMMS, asks lenders about conventional conforming loans and publishes a weekly average. The 30-year and 15-year fixed figures are the ones that end up in news articles. It is a good long chart. People have been looking at it for decades, which is why it feels official. It is still a survey average. It is not a live tape of every rate sheet in the country, and it does not update when bonds move on Friday afternoon. If you locked Tuesday and the PMMS comes out Thursday, you are not late. You were shopping a different day than the survey captured.

The Optimal Blue Mortgage Market Indices, OBMMI, are built from a large sample of rate locks and pricing activity. They usually update every business day. When Treasuries lurch in the morning, a daily index is more likely to show it before dinner. Daily does not mean personal. The index has its own filters for loan type, credit, and geography. Your quote can sit above or below it because of your score, your down payment, or the points you chose. Optimal Blue owns the methodology. We cite the idea of a daily lock index here so you know why a second number exists.

Why the decimals refuse to match, and which clock to open

A weekly average and a daily print are rarely describing the same 24 hours. One series may assume a very clean file. Yours may include a condo, a lower score, or a smaller down payment. A lower rate with two discount points is not the same offer as a higher rate with a lender credit. A headline rarely shows that choice. For a decision, the direction over a couple of weeks usually matters more than forcing the two decimals to agree. A tenth of a percent is real money. It is not a reason to distrust both charts.

If you want the familiar weekly story, and you are not locking this week, PMMS is enough. Rateshive's market charts lean on that public series. If you are inside a purchase contract and checking the portal every morning, a daily index is the more honest backdrop, and your loan officer's rate sheet is more honest than either index. Neither number is your loan. The ground truth is a Loan Estimate on your address, your credit, and your lock length. How those estimates get built is on our methodology page, and the bond side of the story is in what actually affects mortgage rates.

A practical rule: if you are still months from a contract, one weekly print a week is enough context. If you are under contract, ask the loan officer for the same-day par quote each morning you are still floating, and ignore the second decimal on whichever chart you opened at breakfast. Charts explain the weather. They do not replace a lock confirmation. The lock decision itself is in lock now or wait.

How a borrower should use two clocks in the same week

Suppose you are under contract on a Thursday. Freddie Mac's weekly survey, collected earlier in the week, prints 6.55 percent that afternoon. A daily lock index prints 6.72 percent the same morning, and your loan officer's par quote for a 30-day lock is 6.625 percent with no points. None of those figures is a mistake. The survey is an average of what lenders said they were offering to a clean conventional borrower over a multi-day window. The daily index is closer to locks that actually happened. Your quote is your credit, your down payment, your property type, and today's margin.

The useful habit is to stop asking which headline is "the" rate. Write three numbers on the same line: the weekly survey, the daily index if you have one, and the par quote your lender will put on a Loan Estimate today. Do that for the days you are still floating. You will see the weekly number lag a bond selloff by several days, and you will see your quote move on a Tuesday when the survey has not been republished. That lag is why people feel the news "missed" their lock. The news was describing a different clock.

Points make the comparison worse if you ignore them. A 6.50 percent quote with one discount point is not cheaper than a 6.625 percent quote at par until you divide the point by the monthly savings and compare that break-even with the years you will keep the loan. A headline almost never shows the point. Ask for zero-point pricing before you decide the daily index and your lender disagree. The method is in APR and discount points.

Neither publisher is wrong when the decimals differ. Forcing them to match is how people distrust both charts and then lock on a rumor. Direction over two weeks, plus a same-day par quote, is the comparison that holds up.

If you are months from a contract, one weekly print is enough context. Checking both indexes every morning will not improve a purchase you have not made. If you are inside a contract, the loan officer's same-day sheet beats both public series, and the lock confirmation beats the sheet. Charts explain the weather. They do not replace the document you sign. Current charts on this site lean on the public weekly series, which is why a Thursday move in bonds can show up here a few days later. That delay is disclosed on the methodology page.

Sources: Freddie Mac PMMS. OBMMI methodology is owned by Optimal Blue. Educational only.