Rates parked at 7.40%, free AI class Thursday | Monday Market Update Oct 19, 2026

Happy Monday. This was a short update, and the headline is simple. As of October 19, 2026, mortgage rates were parked at about 7.40%.

The week before was a much better one. The bleeding stopped. Rates did not go up, they actually came down a little, and we were able to lock a bunch of clients who had been waiting. If you were not paying attention to rates then, it is easy to miss how rough the run before it was. It was a five or six week stretch where rates just kept climbing, and it felt a lot like the first week of the pandemic, if you remember that. A stretch like that wears people out, so when it pauses, even for a week, a lot of buyers decide that is their window.

That is the main thing I would tell a buyer or an agent right now. When rates are this high, nobody is going to get a perfect number, and waiting for one has not worked for a lot of people. What helps is having a lender who locks when it makes sense, and who looks at every structure before telling you it will not work.

The loan tip I shared is one I want to explain carefully. MortgageOne has a program called Pathway. MortgageOne is a Treasury-certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), and Pathway qualifies a borrower without income documents, employment verification or a debt-to-income requirement. The public terms are a 620 minimum credit score and loans up to $2.5 million, on a primary residence or a second home, and it works for first-time buyers and move-up buyers. It is built for the buyer whose income is real but hard to show on a standard application. Credit, equity, reserves and housing history still get a full review, and it is not the right fit for everyone, so it is worth comparing with a conventional or bank statement loan first. We have done it for a bunch of people lately, and I would want to talk it through before I said it fits you.

My last point was for the agents watching. It feels like the people who have buyers right now really control the market. If you are working on getting more buyers into the car, call me. I would be glad to talk through anything on the lending side, whether it is a client who does not fit the usual box or just a question about where things stand.

I also mentioned a class I was teaching that Thursday on AI tools, which is a separate topic from lending and not something I will cover here.

If you are a buyer in Redding or Shasta County and your income does not look the way a standard application expects, start with the Pathway CDFI mortgage, or get your rate and tell us what your situation looks like. MortgageOne is now licensed in 49 states.