Just looked back at the mortgage rates snapshot from March 2023, and honestly, it's pretty interesting to see where things were at that point. The 30-year fixed was sitting at 7.18% back then, which felt high at the time. That's up from 7.08% the week before, so there was definitely upward pressure.

For context on mortgage rates in march 2023, the 15-year option was hovering around 6.28%, while jumbo mortgages were hitting 7.28%. The 5/1 ARM was the cheapest at 5.81%. If you had grabbed a $100k loan at that 7.18% rate, you're looking at roughly $677 monthly for principal and interest, which adds up to almost $144k in total interest over 30 years. Pretty steep when you break it down.

What caught my attention was the volatility over that 52-week period. The 30-year had ranged from a low of 4.45% to a high of 7.41%, so there was serious movement happening. The APR on a 30-year was 7.19% that week, which tells you the lender fees were adding a bit on top of the base rate.

Looking back at mortgage rates from march 2023 specifically, the 15-year was actually pretty competitive at 6.28% compared to where the 30-year had climbed. On a $100k loan, that would've been $859 monthly, and you'd pay roughly $54.6k in interest over the life of the loan. The jumbo market was following the same upward trend, with those rates at 7.28%.

It's a good reminder of how quickly rates can shift. The rates mortgage lenders were offering in march 2023 reflected a pretty different economic environment than what we're seeing now in 2026. Anyone looking back at that period can see the pressure was definitely on borrowers at that time.