THE RUNDOWN: THE FED MEETS WEDNESDAY, BUT RATES ALREADY MOVED WITHOUT IT

Here is your week in real estate news, minus the parts that exist only to fill a newsletter.

RATES WENT UP. NOT A LITTLE.

Freddie Mac put the 30-year fixed at 6.76% on September 10, up from 6.71% the week before. That sounds like a rounding error until you look at where we were a year ago, which was 6.35%. The 15-year is at 6.09%.

Bloomberg called it the highest since June 2025, and the daily trackers that move faster than Freddie Mac's weekly survey had the 30-year closer to 6.91% by Sunday. So depending on which number your lender quotes you this week, you are somewhere between "slightly annoyed" and "recalculating everything."

For a $600,000 loan, the gap between 6.35% and 6.76% is about $162 a month. Not catastrophic. Not nothing either.

THE FED DECIDES WEDNESDAY

The FOMC meets September 15 and 16, with the decision landing Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. Eastern, which is noon here.

A reminder I will keep making until it stops being necessary: the Fed does not set mortgage rates. It sets the federal funds rate. Mortgage rates follow the 10-year Treasury and the mortgage-backed securities market, which have already priced in whatever they think is coming. This is why rates sometimes go up after a cut. Everyone acts betrayed. Nobody should be surprised.

If you are waiting for Wednesday to tell you whether to buy, Wednesday is going to disappoint you.

INVENTORY IS THE ACTUAL STORY

Existing-home sales came in at 3.98 million in August, down 2.0% from July, per NAR's September 10 release.

But the number I would circle is inventory: 1.62 million homes on the market, which works out to 4.9 months of supply. That is the highest level in more than ten years.

Ten years. We spent most of the last decade in a market where anything decent sold in a weekend and buyers waived everything short of their firstborn. That market is over, and it has been over for a while, and some sellers have not been told.

WHAT THIS MEANS IF YOU ARE SELLING

Nationally, homes are averaging 56 days on market and closing at about 97% of asking, with the median sitting near $400,000, up 2.6% year over year.

Read that again: 97% of asking. Not 103%. Not "we had eleven offers." Ninety-seven percent, in just under two months.

If you are pricing your home against what your neighbor got in 2022, you are not pricing against the market. You are pricing against a memory.

WHAT THIS MEANS IF YOU ARE BUYING

More inventory means more leverage than you have had in years. You can ask for repairs. You can ask for a rate buydown, which in this rate environment is often worth more than a price cut. You can walk away, and increasingly, you should be willing to.

The catch is affordability. Rates went up this week, so your buying power went down this week. Those two things are fighting each other and neither has won.

THE ONE-LINE VERSION

Rates climbed, inventory hit a ten-year high, and the Fed will say something Wednesday that matters less than everyone thinks it does.

SOURCES

• Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, September 10, 2026 - 30-year 6.76%, 15-year 6.09%

• Bloomberg, September 10, 2026 - "Mortgage Rates in the US Rise to 6.76%, Highest Since June 2025"

• Yahoo Finance, September 13, 2026 - daily 30-year fixed at 6.91%, up 24 basis points week over week

• National Association of REALTORS, Existing-Home Sales, released September 10, 2026 - 3.98 million, down 2.0% month over month, 1.62 million inventory, 4.9 months supply

• Homes.com U.S. Housing Market Report - median sale price $400,000, up 2.6% year over year, 56 days on market, 97% of asking (July 2026 data)

• Federal Reserve FOMC meeting calendar - September 15-16, 2026, decision Wednesday September 16 at 2:00 p.m. ET