What was once going well isn’t going so well today.
I’m talking about mortgage rates, which had been at their best levels in years this spring.
But are now around the highest levels since President Trump came into office in early 2025.
While it’s not necessarily a President’s job to keep mortgage rates cheap, Trump in particular campaigned on giving us ultra-low rates again.
Instead, we’re facing some of the worst mortgage rates of his second term as the midterms approach.
What Happened to the 2% Mortgage Rates We Were Promised?
Back in 2024 when Donald Trump was on the road campaigning for a second term, he promised to bring back the record low mortgage rates seen during this first term.
They actually fell to record lows right as Trump was ending his first term in early January 2021.
The 30-year fixed averaged 2.65% during the week ending January 7th, 2021, but then began to climb rapidly in early 2022.
By the end of that year, with President Joe Biden in office, the 30-year fixed was unrecognizable.
It reached an average of roughly 6.50% by December 2022, per Freddie Mac’s weekly survey.
And it got even worse from there, with rates ascending to nearly 8% by late 2023.
That eventually spelled opportunity for presidential hopeful Donald Trump, who used the high rates as campaign fuel.
On numerous occasions, he said he’d bring back the record low rates we enjoyed when he was in office.
During one campaign stop in Arizona in 2024 he said, “Today the mortgage rates are at 10%, 11%, 12%…we will drive down the rate so you will be able to pay 2% again and we will be able to finance or refinance your homes drastically at much lower costs.”
That got people excited, obviously.
They were staring at 7% rates after getting accustomed to 2-3% rates. What wasn’t there to like?
Getting Back to 2% Rates Just Wasn’t At All Realistic
But it didn’t add up. The reason mortgage rates surged higher was because of the many years they were artificially lower, driven by Quantitative Easing (QE), which had since been wound down.
There was really no practical way you’d get 2-3% 30-year fixed mortgage rates again without some major intervention.
Given inflation was spiraling out of control, another round of QE was impossible.
Fast forward to today and mortgage rates aren’t much lower than when Trump entered office for his second term.
The 30-year fixed averaged 6.96% during the week ended January 23, 2025.
Today it’s 6.71%, with a good chance it’ll be closer to 6.80% by the end of this week.
In other words, not much different. And nowhere close the 2% we were promised.
So much for marry the house, date the rate, right?
The question now is does Trump have something up his sleeve to deliver mortgage relief?
Or was it all just unfulfilled campaign promises?
Policies Need to Align with the Goal of Lower Mortgage Rates
I’ll say this. It’s going to be extremely difficult to bring down mortgage rates while waging wars, threatening tariffs, and spending money like it’s going out of style.
It’s for those reasons that we’re facing some of the highest mortgage rates since early 2025.
Ironically, rates did come down under Trump, and we’re at the best levels since late 2022 as recently as this March.
But then the Iranian war broke out and rates quickly moved closer to 7% again.
They are now on the precipice of crossing 7% again, which would be a huge blow as Trump enters the ever-important midterms.
And it seems they’re running out of tricks (or answers) to bring rates back down.
The MBS buying program appeared to do little and any hope of the war ending quickly is also fading, piling even more upward pressure on oil prices (and mortgage rates).
So those hoping Trump will fulfill his promise to return mortgage rates to 2% (or anywhere even remotely close) might not want to hold their breath.
Keep going: Try out my mortgage rate calculator to compare different rates fast.
- President Trump, Who Campaigned on Bringing Back 2% Mortgage Rates, Faces 7% Rates as Midterms Approach - September 9, 2026
- Two Big Inflation Reports Could Push Mortgage Rates Back to 7% This Week - September 8, 2026
- No Relief for Mortgage Rates as August Jobs Report Comes in Hot - September 4, 2026