The most consequential number in mortgage shopping isn’t any lender’s rate — it’s the distance between them. This week that distance narrowed: the gap between the cheapest and most expensive posted 30-year rate RateZip tracks stands at 1.25 points as of October 15, 2026.
Related: Today’s mortgage rates
Where the demand went
Across the three months through September 2026, the mix of mortgage inquiries submitted across RateZip’s network was: purchase 9% (down from 17%); refinance 1% (down from 11%); home-equity products (HELOCs plus reverse) 90% (up from 72%) — each against the same three months a year earlier. The move of the year: 17 percentage points of the entire inquiry mix rotated toward home-equity products in twelve months. At 90% of the mix, home-equity products are the highest in our records.
The Mortgage Demand Index reads in complete months, publishes shares and percent changes only — never inquiry counts — and suppresses any product-month with fewer than 20 inquiries. Comparisons that suppression could distort by more than 3% are dropped from this story rather than approximated. The full series back to 2011, product by product, is on the index page.
One note on the data: the inquiry series changed source systems between the two windows compared here (completed March 2026); the boundary and how it is handled are documented on the Mortgage Demand Index page.
The spread nobody quotes
As of Thursday’s readings, the cheapest posted 30-year fixed rate in RateZip’s tracked set is AmeriSave’s 6.25%; the most expensive is Rocket Mortgage’s 7.5% — a spread of 1.25 points. On a $400,000 loan, that gap is about $334 a month between asking the right lender and the wrong one.
Measured only across lenders present at both ends of a comparison — a lender joining our tracked set must never read as the market moving — that gap is 0.125 points narrower than a week earlier (across the 6 lenders posted at both ends) and 0.135 points narrower than four weeks earlier (across the 6 lenders posted at both ends). Nobody else publishes this number from this angle: it is the distance between the best and worst deal on the same morning, and most weeks it moves more than any single lender’s rate does.
Rates and the 10-year
Posted 30-year rates at the lenders RateZip tracks ended the week an average of 0.083 points lower. In the broader market, the 10-year Treasury yield — the benchmark long-term mortgage pricing most closely tracks — stood at 5.21% at its most recent close (Tuesday, October 13, per FRED), down 1 basis point from a week earlier.
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Mortgage-demand figures come from RateZip’s Mortgage Demand Index: consumer mortgage inquiries across our network, expressed as shares and percent changes. Lender-posted rates come from RateZip’s stored lender-posted rate observations, the same data behind our daily Mortgage rates today report. The 10-year Treasury yield comes from the Federal Reserve’s FRED series. Other reported facts and quotations are attributed to their sources inline. How we collect and publish our data: our rate methodology. RateZip is a licensed mortgage broker (NMLS #1592292); this story describes what borrowers and lenders are doing and is not advice about what any reader should do.
RateZip is operated by Peklava LLC, DBA RateZip, a licensed mortgage broker (NMLS ID 1592292). We are compensated by some of the partners shown, which may affect which offers appear and where. It does not affect our reporting or recommendations. See our editorial standards.
RateZip is operated by Peklava LLC, DBA RateZip, a licensed mortgage broker (NMLS ID 1592292). We are compensated by some of the partners shown on this page, which may affect which offers appear and where. It does not affect our reporting or our recommendations. Rates shown were last updated October 15, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. ET. See our editorial standards and how we use AI.
How we track rates: methodology. Found an error? Tell us.
