Mortgage interest rates have reached the lowest point this year

Average mortgage interest rates for fixed periods of 10, 20, and 30 years have fallen to their lowest point this year. Interest rates for five-year periods have been sliding lower since July, after a rapid increase from February through June, according to data from financial advisory firm Van Bruggen Adviesgroep.

The 10-year fixed interest rate could even fall further before the end of the month, the firm’s analysts predicted. Each of the fixed-term interest rates are lower than at the start of the year for those loans covered by the national mortgage guarantee program NHG.

The 30-year rate has dropped to 4.19 percent on average after starting at a yearly high of 4.37 percent. The average rate for a 20-year fixed period on a mortgage is now 4.08 percent, down from 4.24 percent at the start of January.

The 10-year rate is now at 3.78 percent, down from a peak of about 3.92 percent in mid-June. Five-year rates were also trending higher at that time, reaching 3.89 percent, but have since fallen back down to 3.75 percent. For that shorter period, the fixed rate was at its lowest point this year in February at 3.67 percent, having started the year at 3.80 percent.

Both the 10-year and 30-year rates were now equivalent to low levels set earlier in the year. The 20-year mortgage rate set a new low point for 2024 within the past few weeks.

“Although average mortgage rates are at their lowest point in 2024, it is noteworthy that there was actually very little movement in mortgage rates over the whole of 2024. Perhaps this could change in the last part of 2024, but that is not a certainty,” the organization wrote in a statement.

The financial firm predicted that mortgage rates are more likely to trend “slightly downward rather than slightly upward” during the rest of the year. “Inflation developments and the interest rate decisions of central banks will play an important role in this.”

Last month, the company said a 10-year fixed mortgage with the NHG program could fall to between 3 and 3.5 percent during 2025. Depending on inflation and economic development, the rate could even dip below 3 percent between 2027 and 2030.

The firm’s analysts also noted that the margins on mortgages are currently very low, and competition on the mortgage market is very high. “In fact, we have not seen such small differences between the average 10-year fixed mortgage rate and the 10-year interest rate for Dutch government bonds since 2008.”