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How mortgage interest rates work (and why they're currently out of whack)

(Photo by David Paul Morris/Getty Images)
David Paul Morris
/
Getty Images
(Photo by David Paul Morris/Getty Images)

Even with falling interest rates in recent weeks, mortgage rates are still higher than you'd expect.

Mortgage interest rates are usually a little less than two percentage points higher than what you would get on a 10-year Treasury bond. But for the last couple of years that difference has been noticeably higher: 2.6% at the moment. New borrowers have been paying potentially thousands of dollars extra each year on their mortgages.

Today on the show, how mortgage interest rates work and why they're currently out of whack ... with new borrowers footing the bill.

Related Episodes:
Are both rents AND interest rates too dang high?
How mortgage rates get made
The rat under the Fed's hat
AP Macro gets a makeover

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

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Darian Woods is a co-host of The Indicator from Planet Money.
Wailin Wong
Wailin Wong is a co-host of The Indicator from Planet Money.
Angel Carreras
Angel Carreras is an assistant producer for The Indicator from Planet Money. He is a Bakersfield-raised, Cal State Long Beach graduate. He previously worked at KCRW, the NPR member station in Los Angeles. He has produced award-winning and character-driven work, with subjects that have included masked puppeteers, mutual aid groups, and community activists.
Kate Concannon
Kate Concannon is the Supervising Senior Editor at The Indicator from Planet Money. She leads this small, collaborative team of hosts, reporters and producers in making sense of crucial, but often complex and confusing, economic news in just 10 minutes a day.
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