Frequently Asked Questions: The Newly Enhanced Primary Mortgage Market Survey^®

Since April 1971, Freddie Mac has surveyed lenders across the nation weekly to determine the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate. In 1984, the 1-year ARM was added to the survey and the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage rate was included beginning in 1991. In January 2005, Freddie Mac added a 5/1 hybrid ARM series to the survey. In January 2016, the 1-year ARM was discontinued.

The mortgage rate gathering process was updated with the November 17th, 2022 release of the newly enhanced PMMS^®. Instead of surveying lenders, we now use data from our Loan Product Advisor^®(LPA^SM). Therefore, the PMMS^® results are now based on the mortgage rate collected from thousands of loan applications submitted to Freddie Mac from lenders across the country when a borrower applies for a mortgage. Additionally, we discontinued adjustable rates and fees/points. Please see the Research Note for more detailed information.

The newly enhanced PMMS^® is published each Thursday at noon ET. When a U.S. holiday falls on a Thursday, the PMMS will publish on the Wednesday of that week.

The week of application activity starts at 12:00 a.m. ET the prior Thursday and lasts through 11:59 p.m. ET Wednesday. Therefore, the PMMS^® results are an average of loan rates offered Thursday through Wednesday.

Currently, our lenders are a mix of credit unions, commercial banks, and mortgage lending companies.

We collect the mortgage rate of all purchase applications based on PMMS^® criteria and a national average mortgage rate is calculated out of all the selected loan applications. The criteria include weekly conventional, single-family originations with conforming loan limits as set by FHFA.

PMMS^® rates are based on applications submitted to Freddie Mac for the given week from lenders across the country.

ARMs indexed to alternatives to U.S. Treasury securities have become more prevalent in the market. As we worked on enhancing the PMMS^®, we carefully considered which loan products were most popular for the PMMS^® borrower profile (good/excellent credit, 20% loans, home purchase loans on owner occupied 1-unit single-family properties). Additionally, in recent years the mortgage market has been dominated by fixed mortgage products. While there has been an uptick recently in the share of adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) for the broader mortgage market, ARMs remain most popular for higher loan size (nonconforming) loans.

Under the current LPA requirements, fees and points are not always required to be provided by lenders. Therefore, we are not able to report on the average fees and points.

The PMMS^® is available on Freddie Mac's web site (www.freddiemac.com) under Mortgage Rates.