Just looking back at some historical mortgage rate data from March 2023, and it's kind of wild to see where things were sitting back then. The mortgage rates in March 2023 were pretty elevated compared to what we'd seen just a couple years prior. A 30-year fixed was hovering around 7.18% at that time, which felt steep to a lot of borrowers.

What's interesting is the spread between different mortgage products. While those March 2023 mortgage rates on the standard 30-year were at 7.18%, the 15-year fixed was sitting lower at 6.28%, and if you were looking at a 5/1 ARM back then, you could get 5.81%. The jumbo mortgage rates were even higher at 7.28%. On a $100k loan at those March 2023 rates, your monthly payment for a 30-year would've been around $677 just in principal and interest.

The APR figures were slightly different from the base rates too—7.19% for the 30-year fixed, which is why that distinction matters when you're comparing offers. Over the life of a 30-year loan at those rates, you'd be paying roughly $143k in total interest alone.

Looking at the 52-week ranges from that period, the market had moved significantly. The low for 30-year fixed mortgages was 4.45% and the high was 7.41%, so there was real volatility happening. The 15-year fixed had even wider swings—from 3.64% low to higher levels.

It's a useful reference point for understanding how much the mortgage landscape shifted. Those March 2023 mortgage rates represented a particular moment in the rate cycle, and it shows how much movement we've seen in lending markets over time.