So I was looking back at mortgage rates from march 2023 and it's wild how much things have shifted since then. Back then, a 30-year fixed was sitting at 7.18% - that was considered pretty high at the time. If you grabbed a 15-year mortgage, you were looking at 6.28%. For comparison, jumbo mortgages were even steeper at 7.28%.

What's interesting about those march 2023 mortgage rates is how they hit different depending on your loan type. A 5/1 ARM was cheaper at 5.81%, which made sense for people planning shorter holds. But here's the thing - when you're calculating what you actually pay, you can't just look at the interest rate alone. The APR matters way more because it includes all the lender fees baked in.

Let me break down the real numbers from that period. On a $100k loan at 7.18%, your monthly payment would've been around $677 just for principal and interest. Over 30 years, you'd pay almost $144k in interest alone. For the 15-year option at 6.28%, monthly payments jumped to $859, but you'd save a ton on total interest - only about $54.6k over the life of the loan.

The jumbo market in march 2023 told a similar story. At 7.28%, a $750k jumbo mortgage would've run you about $5,100+ monthly. These mortgage rates march 2023 snapshot really showed how the market was pricing risk and inflation expectations back then. If you were shopping for a home during that window, understanding APR versus just the interest rate was crucial - that's where the real cost showed up.