So I was looking at mortgage rates from late 2022 and noticed something interesting—the 30-year fixed was sitting at 6.66%, which had actually dipped a bit from the week before. What caught my attention is how much the 15-year option could save you on interest, even though the monthly payments are way higher. The 15-year rate was around 6.00% at that time, which is noticeably lower than the 30-year.

If you were considering a $100,000 loan back then with December 2022 mortgage rates, the math showed you'd pay roughly $643 monthly on a 30-year versus $844 on a 15-year. Sounds like a lot more per month, but over the life of the loan you'd save a ton in interest—we're talking about $131,000 versus $52,000 in total interest. That's the real difference that jumps out when you compare the two.

For anyone with jumbo mortgages, rates were sitting around 6.70% for 30-year fixed, and ARM rates were a bit lower at 5.45%. The general consensus back then was that rates might keep climbing—some forecasts were predicting they could hit 7% by year-end. Pretty wild how much the mortgage landscape has shifted since that point in late 2022.