US mortgage rates were flat from last week.

That’s according to Wednesday’s update on the MBA’s gauge. It was the first time since late last month that financing costs for characterless cubicles hastily-erected on stamp-sized parcels in dystopian suburban tract builds haven’t risen. Put differently, it’s the first time since the Fed cut rates by 50bps that financing costs for homes didn’t move up.

For everyday people — which is to say for people who need to finance homes and who don’t immerse themselves in markets — the run up in mortgage rates to the highest in three months probably seems odd. The Fed lowered borrowing costs and then mortgage rates promptly… rose? Yes. Unfortunately for the oppressed renter class who should’ve locked in September, yes.

The uptick in mortgage rates since the Fed meeting obviously coincided with a similar-sized increase in 10-year yields and the largest post-first cut selloff in twos since 1995.

I don’t know how many times I said this since early August — a lot, I said it a lot — but if you were on the sidelines, ready to “get in” and recognize the American dream by chaining yourself to a property you’ll be tired of two years into a 30-year stream of payments, you needed to either do it or resign yourself to waiting another several months or maybe even a bit longer. Because it wasn’t ever going to be as simple as your local loan officer might’ve pitched it to you.

Consider this: Thanks to the combination of Fed cut anticipation and the late-July / early-August growth scare, mortgage rates dropped nearly three quarters of a point in less than two months headed into the September FOMC. The talking point that said scoring another half-point of relief was as easy as waiting on the Fed to wave a magic wand was plainly ridiculous. And yet, it was a talking point. And people did believe it. So much the worse for them.

Here’s an idea for next time: Pay whatever it costs for a program that lets you lock and gives you an option to float down in the event rates were to plunge before closing. Or at least ask, because if your question is whether there’s a product for that, and the context is any sort of finance, the answer is everywhere and always “yes.” It’s just a matter of how much it’s going to cost you. But there’s always a product for that, whatever “that” happens to be, just like there’s always an “app for that.”

Speaking of apps, the MBA’s application activity gauge slipped to the lowest since July this week. Purchases and refis both receded.

The figure shows the purchase index with rates (inverted).

MBA VP Joel Kan was quick to note that purchase apps “continued to run stronger than last year.” “Even though rates have been on a recent upswing, they are over a full percentage point lower than a year ago, which has kept some homebuyers in the market,” he said. That’s — umm — a low bar. Mortgage rates were damn near 8% this time last year.

This is going to be rough on Main Street for the foreseeable future. Basically, everyday people who barely qualify are having to gamble on the near-term outlook for 10-year Treasury yields. Because prices for starter homes in America are so high post-pandemic, even families working with more than the median annual household income are barely able to stay under the DTI ratio for a conventional loan even with a respectable downpayment. If it’s close and you don’t lock, you better hope rates don’t jump sharply in a month. If they do, you’re going to be the unnamed, at-fault party in one of those irritable-sounding Zillow listings: “BACK on market through NO fault of the seller’s!”