By Sabrina Karl

You might have seen the headline: 30-year mortgage rates hit 5%. That was last week’s news from Freddie Mac, the government-owned mortgage buyer that’s been tracking national mortgage averages for more than 50 years.

Freddie Mac, or the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, surveys lenders across the country once a week, with most responses arriving Monday and Tuesday. Freddie Mac then compiles the rates and on Thursday publishes the resulting national average.

Though Freddie Mac’s weekly structure, weighted to the start of the week, means it doesn’t capture every high and low, Freddie Mac provides the industry’s longest-running historical rate record, reaching all the way back to 1971. That framing is important now in providing perspective on today’s rates.

It’s true that a 5% average on 30-year mortgages is notable. Indeed, the last time Freddie Mac recorded a weekly average above 5%, it was February 2011, making this the highest average in over a decade.

Still, anyone who’s held a mortgage more than 10 years ago can likely remember being quite pleased with a rate in the 5 percent range. That’s because mortgage rates of the past were so much higher, often in the double digits.

Freddie Mac averages throughout the 1970s ranged from 7.23% to 12.90%, and the 1980s were even worse, peaking above an eye-popping 18% and only dipping to 9%. It wasn’t until the 1990s that we saw almost all single-digit averages, sinking as low as 6.5%. And it took until January 2009 for the Freddie Mac average to dip below 5% for the first time in history.

So yes, mortgage rates may feel high right now, especially given how low they receded during the pandemic. But overall, these are still historically low rates, and a 5% loan still provides an affordable value for today’s homebuyers.