The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate eased for the second week in a row, but remains elevated compared with this time last year.
The benchmark 30-year fixed rate mortgage rate fell to 6.65% from 6.67% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. One year ago, the average rate was 6.58%.
Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, often sought by borrowers refinancing a home loan, also eased this week. That average rate dropped to 5.95% from 5.96% last week. However, a year ago, it was at 5.69%.
Despite the recent pullback, mortgage rates have been mostly rising this year, limiting homebuyers’ purchasing power. Elevated rates can lead prospective home shoppers to delay buying a home, one reason U.S. home sales have been sluggish this year.
Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, including inflation, broader policy rate decisions from the Federal Reserve and expectations from bond market investors for the economy. They generally follow the trajectory of the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans.
Both mortgage rates and the bond market have been mostly rising this year due to the U.S. war with Iran, which has fueled expectations for hotter inflation as crude oil prices soared. Despite easing oil prices recently, long-term bond yields remain steeper than they were before the conflict began in late February, pushing mortgage rates to tread higher.
With bond yields marching higher in recent months on worries about high inflation, gargantuan government debts and other factors, the U.S. Treasury Department said Wednesday that it would at least double the amount of U.S. government bonds that it planned to buy back over the next few months.
The move helped helped pull yields down after the 10-year Treasury’s yield had hit its highest level in more than a year.
The 10-year Treasury yield was 4.71% as of midday Thursday on the bond market. Before the war, it was just 3.97% in late February.
The U.S. housing market has been in a slump since 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes were essentially flat last year, stuck at a 30-year low. U.S. sales of previously-occupied homes again slowed in July.
FILE - A for sale sign is displayed in front of a home in Evanston, Ill., on March 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
HARBEL, Liberia (AP) — The United States on Thursday carried out its first deportation under an agreement for Liberia to accept up to 1,200 people who are not from the African country, one of the Trump administration's largest efforts yet to deport people to countries other than their own.
The 20 deportees arrived at Roberts International Airport outside Monrovia.
Deportees will include African nationals as well as nationals from North America, South America and the Caribbean, according to Liberian Information Minister Jerolinmek Piah. Liberian Justice Minister Natu Oswald Tweh has said they could seek asylum in the West African country if they wished.
The U.S. State Department declined to answer questions about the Liberia agreement, but said that implementing the Trump administration’s immigration policies was a “top priority.” It said it was “unwavering in our commitment to end illegal and mass immigration and bolster America’s border security.”
The U.S. Homeland Security Department declined to confirm Thursday's deportations “for operational security reasons” and referred additional questions to the State Department.
Third-country agreements are often shrouded in secrecy. Migrants have been deported to countries they have never been to or where they face safety risks and are left with little choice other than to return to the home countries they were fleeing from.
The Trump administration struck agreements with at least 35 countries to deport people who are from other countries, including Liberia and 13 others in Africa, according to Third Country Deportation Watch, a partnership of Refugees International and Human Rights First that relies on public records requests, news reports and other sources. More than 23,000 people have deported to 26 countries under the agreements.
The U.S. State Department previously announced that Liberia agreed to accept deportees who are not from Liberia. But a six-page agreement reached in September 2025 and posted on its website does not say how many or from which countries.
In October 2025, Liberia offered to accept Kilmar Abrego Garcia of El Salvador, who was mistakenly deported to prison in El Salvador. Blocked from sending him to his native country, the Trump administration has vowed to send him to a third county, including Liberia.
Abrego Garcia has said he would agree to be deported to Costa Rica, which has said it will accept him. But the government has so far declined to send him there. Abrego Garcia is fighting deportation to Liberia in a federal lawsuit in Maryland.
Plane carrying the deportees from the US arrives at the Roberts International Airport outside of Monrovia, Liberia, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Alexander Wiaplah)
A plane carrying the deportees from the US arrives at the Roberts International Airport outside of Monrovia, Liberia, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Alexander Wiaplah)
A plane carrying the deportees from the United States arrives at the Roberts International Airport outside of Monrovia, Liberia, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Alexander Wiaplah)
FILE - Wide view of Monrovia, Liberia, from the top of the Ducor Hotel, Sunday, June 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Annie Risemberg, File)
FILE -Liberia's President Joseph Boakai addresses the 80th session of the UN General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, Sept. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis, File)
