Mortgage Applications Slide as 30-Year Rate Climbs for a Sixth Straight Week to 7.3%

Borrowers are hitting pause. Mortgage applications fell 6.0 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ending Sept. 25, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey released Sept. 30 — with both purchase and refinance applications dropping to their slowest weekly pace since 2025.

The driver is rates. The 30-year fixed rate increased for the sixth consecutive week to 7.3 percent, its highest level since November 2023, said Joel Kan, MBA’s vice president and deputy chief economist. The Refinance Index fell 9 percent for the week and stood 56 percent below the same week a year ago, while the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index dropped 4 percent and was 14 percent lower than a year earlier.

Borrowers are adapting where they can. Adjustable-rate mortgages, with rates roughly 80 basis points below fixed-rate loans, accounted for 10.3 percent of applications — the highest ARM share since October 2025 — and government refinances fell 13 percent, with both FHA and VA applications posting double-digit weekly declines.

For the South Bay, the takeaway is straightforward: the rate shock is sidelining marginal buyers and shrinking refi pipelines, which means fewer bidding wars on mid-tier listings and more sellers absorbing price cuts. Buyers who are staying in the game should be pricing loans across multiple lenders and asking whether an ARM or a seller-paid buydown pencils out against the 7.3 percent benchmark.

Source: Mortgage Bankers Association — https://www.mba.org/news-and-research/newsroom/news/2026/09/30/mortgage-applications-decrease-in-latest-mba-weekly-survey

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