We’ll watch the rate until it clears your break-even
Tell us the mortgage once — what you owe, what you pay, how long is left, and what you think it would cost to refinance. We read Freddie Mac’s 30-year fixed average every day. The week it falls far enough that those closing costs come back inside half the term you have left, you get one email with the whole calculation in it.
30-year fixed average
6.58%Observed Jul 23, 2026
- Low, 26 weeks
- 5.98%
- High, 26 weeks
- 6.58%
- Move over that span
- +0.48 pp
Freddie Mac publishes this average once a week. We read it every day. Source: MORTGAGE30US, retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
The mortgage you have
What is left on the loan today, not what the house is worth.
The rate on your statement, to as many decimals as it shows.
We price a new loan over these same months, never a fresh 30 years — stretching the term cuts the payment whatever rates do.
Lender fees, appraisal and title. Your number, not ours — it sets the break-even, so a guess here is a guess there.
We already know the market's half: 6.58%, observed Jul 23, 2026. Add yours and the arithmetic fills in here as you type.
Fill in the four boxes and the break-even appears. The email step comes after that — you should see what you are signing up for first.
What a lower rate is actually worth
Below is one mortgage — $312,500 at 7.125% with 300 months to run and $5,400 of closing costs, paying $2,233.67 a month — priced at each of the rates people tend to name. Every new payment is over the same 300 months, never a fresh thirty years, so the whole difference is the rate.
| 30-year average | New payment | Saved each month | Break-even | Alerts you? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6.58%today | $2,125.67 | $108.00 | 50 months (4 yr 2 mo) | Yes |
| 6.00% | $2,013.44 | $220.23 | 25 months (2 yr 1 mo) | Yes |
| 5.50% | $1,919.02 | $314.65 | 18 months (1 yr 6 mo) | Yes |
| 5.00% | $1,826.84 | $406.83 | 14 months (1 yr 2 mo) | Yes |
The line for this loan sits at 6.94%. A weekly average at or below it repays the $5,400 inside half the 300 months remaining, which is the test an alert has to pass; above it, the arithmetic still works, but the payback arrives too late in the term for us to write to you unprompted about it. Your own line will be a different number — the form works it out from your figures before you give us an email address.
What refinancing actually costs
The form asks what refinancing would cost you, and that is the one figure on it you cannot read off a statement. It is also the figure the break-even divides by, so a guess there is a guess in every month we quote you. These are the four sections your lender itemises, in the order they appear on the paperwork.
| Section | What it covers | Who sets it |
|---|---|---|
| Origination charges | The lender’s own fees — application, underwriting, processing, rate lock — plus any discount points you choose to buy. | Your lender |
| Services you cannot shop for | Work the lender orders from a provider it picks. Usually the appraisal and the credit report. | Your lender picks the provider |
| Services you can shop for | Title search, the lender’s title insurance, and the settlement or closing agent. | You may use your own provider |
| Taxes and government fees | Recording the new mortgage with the county, and any state or local transfer or mortgage tax. | Your county or state |
Those headings are not ours. They are the sections of the Loan Estimate — the three-page form the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says a lender must give you within three business days of your application — which is what makes two quotes comparable at all: same form, same sections, same order. For a whole number to start from before you have one, Freddie Mac’s refinancing guidance says to expect 3% to 6% of the loan principal, which on the $312,500 example above would be $9,375 to $18,750. That is their range, for the country, and it is no substitute for your own estimate.
Your estimate will also list prepaids and an initial escrow deposit — property taxes, homeowner’s insurance, interest to the first payment. Those are not a fee for refinancing; they are what the house costs you either way. The number this page wants is the fee part, not the cash you bring to closing, because only the fees are what the lower payment has to earn back.
Where the 30-year average has been
The line in the panel above is this data drawn small, to show that it moves. Here are the same weeks at a size where you can read a number off the axis. It is a national weekly average and nothing more — it does not forecast, and neither do we.
Where every number comes from
The rate is MORTGAGE30US — Freddie Mac’s 30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Average in the United States, published weekly and retrieved from FRED at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. That series is free to read and free to cite, so we can print the number inside an email and name where it came from rather than asking you to take it on trust. We also store every observation we act on, which is what keeps the figure in an alert checkable months later.
Both payments are priced over the months you have left, never over a fresh thirty years. Re-amortising a twenty-two-year balance over a new thirty-year term cuts the monthly payment whatever rates do — an alert built that way would congratulate you for paying more interest. Holding the term fixed makes the whole monthly difference attributable to the rate. Break-even is your closing costs divided by that difference, rounded up to a whole month.
We write when that break-even lands inside the first half of the months you have left, not merely before the last payment. The weaker test is satisfied by results nobody would call one: on $312,500 at 7.125% with 300 months to go and $5,400 of costs, it turns true at 7.03% — where the saving is $19.00 a month, the payback arrives in month 285 of 300, and the whole-term gain is $300. Half the term is the point at which the saving runs for at least as long again after it repays the costs, so what you keep is worth those costs over again. That is the sentence an unasked-for email has to be able to make.
A watch waits as long as it takes, so the figures you gave us do not stand still. We carry the balance and the term forward on your scheduled payment before pricing anything, because the stored ones flatter the answer in both directions at once — a balance that has not been paid down overstates the monthly saving, and a term that has not run leaves the break-even more room to fit inside. That carry-forward assumes the schedule and nothing else: no overpayments, no missed months, no recast. Every alert says so, and names the day you gave us the figures.
What this deliberately is not
It is not advice. Nobody reviews your finances, your credit, your equity or your escrow, and we never say whether you should refinance — we show the arithmetic and the break-even and stop there. A national weekly average is not a quote either: what a lender actually offers depends on your credit, your equity, points and the property, and the calculation ignores taxes, insurance, PMI and whether you expect to still own the home when the break-even arrives. We do not rank lenders and take no referral fee for any of this.
There are also no accounts. The link we email is the whole proof that a watch is yours, which is why we cannot look one up by email address for anyone who asks — an endpoint that did would hand a stranger your mortgage balance. Keep the email, or set the watch up again. Prefer to run the numbers by hand? The refinance calculator takes any rate you like.
Questions people actually ask about refinancing
How much does it cost to refinance a mortgage?
Freddie Mac’s own refinancing guidance says to expect 3% to 6% of the loan principal. The bill is made of four things: the lender’s origination charges, services the lender orders and you cannot shop for such as the appraisal and credit report, services you can shop for such as title search and settlement, and recording fees and taxes set by your county or state. None of those are national figures, which is why this page asks you for the number instead of assuming one. Your lender must give you a Loan Estimate within three business days of your application, and that form is the only itemised answer that is actually yours.
When is refinancing actually worth it?
The usual test is break-even: divide what the refinance costs you up front by what it saves you each month, and that is how many months of saving it takes to get your money back. Keep the loan well past that month and the saving is real; move or refinance again before it and you paid for something you did not keep. This watchdog holds out for a stronger version — the costs back inside half the months you have left — because at that point the saving runs at least as long again afterwards, so what you keep is worth the closing costs over again.
Does refinancing restart my mortgage at 30 years?
It does if you let it. A refinance is a new loan with a new term, and the offer in front of you is usually a fresh 30 years, which cuts the monthly payment even when the rate has not improved — you are spreading the same debt over more months and paying more interest for it. Every figure on this page is priced over the months you have left instead, so the monthly difference you see is attributable to the rate and nothing else. A lender can write a shorter term if you ask for one.
How far does the rate have to fall before you email me?
There is no single number, because it depends on your balance, your rate, the months you have left and the closing costs you expect. A large balance with a long way to run repays its costs on a much smaller move than a small one nearly paid off. Fill in the form and it shows you the exact rate for your loan before you hand over an email address. The rule behind that rate never changes: the closing costs have to come back inside half the months you have left.
Is the 30-year average the rate I would be offered?
No. MORTGAGE30US is Freddie Mac’s national weekly average for a 30-year fixed mortgage, published each Thursday and read here from FRED at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. It measures where the market is; it is not a quote. What a lender actually offers depends on your credit, your equity, the property and whether you buy points. We watch the average because it is public, checkable and the same number for everybody — an alert built on it tells you the market moved, not that you have been approved for anything.
Does setting a watch affect my credit score?
No. Nothing here touches your credit file. We do not pull a credit report, we never contact a lender on your behalf, and we take no referral fee if you refinance. All that happens is that a public weekly average gets compared with the figures you typed in. Applying for a refinance later does involve a credit check by that lender, but that is between you and them.
What if I lose the email with my link in it?
You set the watch up again. There are no accounts here, so the link we email is the whole proof that a watch is yours — an endpoint that looked one up from an email address would hand a stranger your mortgage balance for the price of knowing your address. Every message we send about a watch carries that link, and every one of them carries a one-click cancel.
If you would rather not wait
A watch is for a rate that has not arrived. For one that has, the refinance calculator prices any rate and any term you type in, including the fresh thirty years a lender is likely to offer — which this page deliberately never assumes. The mortgage payment calculator is where to start if you want the payment rebuilt from the price and the deposit rather than from a balance, and the 15- vs 30-year comparison answers the question a refinance quietly puts in front of you.
Refinancing is not the only way to pay less interest, and the other ways cost nothing to start. The mortgage payoff calculator shows what overpaying does to the same loan, and the biweekly payment calculator shows what the extra thirteenth payment a year is worth. Neither carries closing costs, so neither has a break-even to clear.
For the reasoning rather than the arithmetic: Is refinancing worth it? walks the break-even rule through by hand, how mortgage amortization works explains why the same rate cut is worth less the later it arrives, and APR vs. interest rate covers the gap closing costs open between the rate you are quoted and the rate you pay.
Sources and review notes
- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED) — MORTGAGE30US, Freddie Mac 30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Average
- Freddie Mac — Understanding the costs of refinancing
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — Loan Estimate explainer
The 3%-to-6% range and the Loan Estimate’s four fee sections are those bodies’ own, cited so you can check them rather than take our word for it. The payment, saving and break-even arithmetic is the engine the alerts use and is covered by deterministic unit tests. No financial professional review is claimed.