What a Rate Move Actually Costs an East Bay Buyer

Sixty-nine basis points does not sound like anything. On an $800,000 loan it is $4,376 a year.

That is the gap between where the thirty-year fixed sat last September and where it sits this week. Freddie Mac put it at 6.95% on September 17, up from 6.76% the week before and 6.26% a year ago. Rates went up, not down.

Most buyers track the rate like a stock price and wait for a dip. That is the wrong screen to watch. The rate is not what you are competing against. The other buyers are, and the rate decides how many of them show up.

What it costs, in dollars

Twenty percent down on a $1,000,000 East Bay home is an $800,000 loan.

• At 6.26%, principal and interest run $4,931 a month.
• At 6.95%, the same loan runs $5,296.
• That is $365 a month, $4,376 a year, $21,880 over five years.

Run it the other direction and it gets clearer. To hold the payment you would have had last September, you now borrow $744,914 instead of $800,000. Same money out of your account, 6.9% less house.

What most buyers miss

Every tick up thins the field. The buyer who was stretching at 6.26% is out at 6.95%. The one who needed to sell first is waiting. The investor ran the numbers again and passed.

You feel that at the offer table. Contingencies that got waived in a hot spring survive. Repair credits get discussed instead of dismissed. Sellers who priced for a market that ended in July start listening in September.

Cheap money in a crowded room is one kind of hard. Expensive money in an empty room is a different kind, and the second one is easier to negotiate in.

What to do this week

Call your lender and have your approval re-run at the current rate. Not your old letter.

Then work backward. Take the payment you are actually comfortable with and let that set your price band, instead of shopping at the maximum somebody approved you for in March. Most buyers do it in the wrong order and find out at the worst possible moment.

I will tell you what this costs me to say. A 6.95% market means fewer of you buy this year, and that is not good for my business. It is still the right call for some of you to wait, and I would rather say that than watch you stretch into a payment you resent.

If you want a straight read on a specific house, send me the address and your timeline. I will run the numbers at the current rate and tell you what I would do with it.

Rate figures from the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, week of September 17, 2026. Payment figures are principal and interest only and assume a thirty-year fixed loan.