On Wednesday I said the bond rally hadn't reached borrowers yet. By Thursday it had.

Mortgage News Daily's 30-year index went from 7.30% on Tuesday to 7.22% Wednesday and 7.17% Thursday. Freddie Mac's weekly average came in at 7.18%, down from 7.24%, its third drop in a row. The 10-year closed Wednesday at 4.90% and traded around 4.83% Thursday. Still, that's 0.80 points above where mortgage rates were a year ago (6.37%), so nobody should call this cheap money.

What pushed it: the Treasury's refunding had no surprises and held auction sizes steady "for the next several quarters," a tech-led stock selloff sent money into bonds, and a split Congress makes a big new borrowing bill less likely. One catch I'd watch is that the Treasury quietly dropped "at least" from that guidance, which most people read as possible bigger auctions in the first half of 2027.

Running my usual flip math: a $264,000 loan (20% down on a $330,000 house) was about $1,810 a month at 7.30%. At 7.17% it's about $1,787. Hold the payment at $1,810 and the exit buyer can carry about $267,400 of loan, roughly $3,400 more than Tuesday. If rates bounce back to 7.40% after the jobs report, that drops to about $261,400. That's real money, but it's too narrow a range to raise an offer on. I'm treating it as cushion, not as a higher ARV.

On rentals it's smaller still. A $250,000 takeout is about $1,692 a month at 7.17% against $1,714 at 7.30%. Twenty-two dollars helps a deal that already covers. It won't fix one that doesn't.

The jobs report lands at 7:30 a.m. Central. Consensus is roughly 55,000 to 59,000 after 29,000 in September, with unemployment at 4.2%. ADP came in at 86,000 against 69,000 expected and jobless claims fell to 189,000, so the labor market looks like it's cooling slowly, not breaking. A strong number keeps a December 9 Fed hike in play and could push rates back toward 7.3%. A weak one gives the rally room toward 7%. Then the 10-year auction on Tuesday is the next real test.

I put the longer write-up on my website, which you can find through my profile.

For those of you with a resale or refi coming up in the next few months: did this week's drop change anything in how you're underwriting the exit, or are you waiting to see if it survives the jobs report?