So I was looking back at some mortgage rate data from May 2023, and it's pretty interesting to see how things were moving back then. The 30-year fixed was hovering around 6.85% at that point, which honestly doesn't seem that far off from what we're seeing in some markets even now. What caught my eye was how the rates had actually dipped slightly from the day before—they dropped from 6.90% to 6.85%—but if you looked at the week before, they were sitting at 6.93%. Pretty tight movement either way.

If you were shopping for a 15-year mortgage back in May 2023, you'd be looking at roughly 6.16%, down just a bit from the prior week's 6.25%. For jumbo loans, the rates were a touch higher at 6.94%. The interesting part about mortgage rates in May 2023 was that if you wanted an ARM—one of those 5/1 adjustable rate mortgages—you could lock in at 5.76%, which was noticeably lower than the fixed options.

To put some real numbers on it: on a standard $100,000 mortgage at that 6.85% rate, you'd be paying around $655 monthly in principal and interest, and over the full 30 years you'd end up paying roughly $135,893 in total interest. The 15-year option would run you about $853 per month on the same loan amount. For anyone looking at jumbo properties, a $750,000 mortgage at 6.94% would mean monthly payments around $4,965.

What's useful to remember is that APR—your annual percentage rate—includes both the interest rate and any finance charges, so it's the real all-in cost. Back in May 2023, the APR on that 30-year was 6.86%, slightly higher than the base rate. The 52-week low for mortgage rates in May 2023 was sitting at 5.26% for the 30-year, so there was some range in the market even within that year. If you were running the numbers back then, a mortgage calculator would've helped you figure out what actually fit your budget based on your down payment and local taxes.