An FCA survey found firms have closed an increasing number of suspected mule accounts over the last 3 years: 238,396 suspected mules had their accounts closed in 2025, up from 184,935 in 2023 and 233,269 in 2024.
An increase in account closures could reflect broader customer growth alongside improvements in identifying and acting on suspected mule activity, rather than necessarily meaning mules make up a higher proportion of firms’ business.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) estimates more than £100bn is laundered through the UK or UK corporate structures each year. Money mule activity is one way criminals move these funds, by using people’s bank accounts to receive or transfer money on their behalf.
Account closures were highest among customers aged 26 to 39 (91,073), while the sharpest increase was among customers aged 40 to 49 (37,274 in 2025 up from 25,760 in 2024). Customers aged 25 and under (85,425) also represented a significant proportion of closures.
The financial regulator also found evidence that criminals moved fraudulent funds through multiple accounts, usually cashing out between the second and fifth account. By this stage, payments are harder to detect and trace, and shows that firms need to crack down on activity as early as possible.
Some accounts had been used repeatedly for mule activity before firms shut them down and had also been used for fraud. This points to an established criminal infrastructure rather than opportunistic, isolated incidents.
The FCA, NCA, Home Office, the Treasury, HMRC and industry are leading on 9 system priorities (PDF) as part of the UK’s response to economic crime. The FCA is playing a key role on the money mules priority by working with industry on an action plan to tackle the problem, including better ways for firms and law enforcement to share intelligence on suspected money mule activity.
Steve Smart, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said:
‘Money muling is a crime and it’s not victimless. It makes it harder to recover stolen cash and helps criminals move and hide the proceeds of serious offending. People should be wary of contact out of the blue, including via online channels, asking them to funnel money through their account as they could face prosecution.
‘It’s good that financial firms are taking action on mules, but banks, law enforcement, technology companies and consumers all have a role to play in stopping people being drawn into criminal activity.’
Money mule warning signs to look out for
If you’re approached out of the blue online with an offer of quick cash, then alarm bells should ring.
Scammers may call it a ‘job offer’ but no legitimate company will ask you to use your own bank account to transfer their money.
Never give sensitive financial details to someone you don’t know and trust.
Be aware that the consequences of becoming a money mule could include losing access to your bank account and possible prosecution.
Find out more about money transfer scams.
Notes to editors
Read our multi-firm review: Money mules: mule activity and cashing out findings.
Alongside the National Economic Crime Centre, the FCA is alerting firms to its latest findings.
Fighting financial crime is one of the FCA’s strategic priorities (PDF).
The FCA surveyed 35 retail banks, building societies, challenger banks, payment institutions and e-money institutions.
The FCA also established a public/private cell in 2025 – a working group with 22 regulated firms. The cell looked at 140 cases, covering 7 types of fraud.
The FCA found card payments were the most common cash-out method and used to make lots of low-value transactions, or higher-value payments to local businesses and retailers. This can resemble legitimate consumer spending and be harder for firms to detect.
Retail banks accounted for most transactions passing through mule accounts, whereas other firms experience lower volumes but higher-value transactions. This suggests different criminal behaviours, cash-out strategies and risk concentrations.
The Home Office’s Fraud Strategy 2026 to 2029 recognises the role that money mule networks play in facilitating fraud and financial crime.
This work follows previous publications on detecting and preventing money mules, and firms’ use of the National Fraud Database (NFD) and money mule detection tools.
The FCA enables a fair and thriving financial services market for the good of consumers and the economy. Find out more about the FCA.
He said the math behind referring a second mortgage elsewhere has flipped from what it used to be, and originators who haven’t caught up to that shift are handing away business they don’t need to lose.
“We used to use second mortgages to develop a referral from a bank. You would send your borrower to the bank or credit union to do the second mortgage,” he said. “In today’s world, if you send your borrower to a bank or credit union, you may not get them back for that first mortgage. So why not stay in front of your borrower today? Help them out with the debt refinance or debt consolidation second.”
Staying in front of clients
It’s always important to build long-term relationships with your clients, but that becomes critical in challenging market conditions.
“You got to stay in front of your clients,” he said. “It’s amazing to see LOs that aren’t using a CRM, or even if they’ve set up a CRM, they don’t take full advantage of it. Borrowers will go online and start shopping for the best possible rate, and the best possible rate isn’t always the best possible loan for every borrower.
“But if the LO is not staying in front of them, there’s just too many avenues for those borrowers to shop. Whether it’s wishing someone a happy birthday or just checking in, if they’re not doing that, their chance of retaining that relationship gets smaller each day.”
Meta’s new AI agent app is quickly taking hold of the consumer market, unseating ChatGPT as the top free app on Apple’s App Store in recent days. The app, which features a personal AI agent that books appointments, shops, and organizes calendars on people’s behalf, is the talk of tech circles this week.
Named Muse, the app, which uses Meta’s latest Muse Spark AI model, connects users to a range of services that its AI agent autonomously handles. That means handing over access to accounts across a user’s phone in exchange for Muse booking a vacation or handling restaurant reservations on their behalf. It’s the first major consumer AI agent push by Meta, and it’s catapulting the company for now, past its competitors.
Not everyone is rolling out the red carpet for Meta’s Muse, however. Amazon blocked Meta’s assistant from accessing its online store, saying that “continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates Amazon’s Conditions of Use, to which our customers have agreed.” Amazon said Meta never asked for permission to access its site. Meta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, though the company announced it would partner with Shopify for some of Muse’s shopping features.
“It is only a matter of time before there is an Apple and Google version of Muse and possibly TikTok, in addition to the frontier LLM agents,” Nikesh Arora, chief executive at Palo Alto Networks, wrote on X. “Every app that is a services, marketplace or commerce app will need to existentially decide to open [Application Programming Interfaces] for consumer agents to interact. Smaller players have no choice. Either the consumer benefits or distribution aggregators will demand a higher transaction fare.”
Muse’s break-out success represents a much needed victory for Meta in the AI arena, following a series of struggles by the company to compete with frontier labs like OpenAI and Anthropic.
Muse’s fast-rising popularity, and Amazon’s reactionary block, show how quickly agentic technology is transforming the consumer space. Meta released Muse just as Anthropic and OpenAI released cheaper versions of some of their models. Apple also recently rolled out its revamped Siri as part of its newest iOS update.
The bigger questions raised by Muse’s release are who controls the shopping and user interfaces Meta is trying to access, and how major companies will agree to such access. For Amazon, Muse is a threat because it bypasses the usual process of humans visiting its website or app and seeing the advertisements that serve as a key profit driver.
“This is bigger than a dispute over bot detection or website access. We are moving toward a world where agents will increasingly act as our representatives online,” Liat Ben-Zur, CEO of executive consultancy LBZ Advisory and former Microsoft Vice President of Consumer Services, told Fortune. “The companies that control the rules of access will have enormous influence over whether those agents actually work for the consumer.”
Amazon has taken action against other companies over similar issues. Last year, it sued Perplexity over its Comet AI tool, which could access Amazon accounts much like Muse does. Amazon recently lost a ruling on that claim after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that users were ultimately choosing to access Amazon via Perplexity’s bot; Amazon is still fighting the issue.
Amazon has its own shopping agent, called Buy for Me, which performs tasks similar to Muse’s. The company has said brands can opt out of the feature, though doing so requires action, since brands are automatically opted in. CEO Andy Jassy has also said Amazon is exploring AI shopping agent partnerships with third-party companies.
Privacy is sure to be a key issue for consumers weighing assistants like Muse, which allow for personal touches—like the ability to name your assistant— but require access to sensitive information, such as bank accounts, to truly work on a user’s behalf.
Meta says user logins are kept secret and that online purchases use a one-time card number that hides a person’s actual card details. Still, Meta has been at the heart of previous privacy issues. Meta has faced multiple proposed class-action lawsuits related to its smart glasses, including one alleging that it sent some footage captured by the glasses, including highly personal material, to third-party human reviewers for annotation and AI development. Meta has disputed the allegations.
The rise of Muse is timely for Meta: CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to unveil updates to the company’s smart glasses at its annual Connect event in Menlo Park, Calif., on Wednesday.
GoldState Music, the investment firm founded by Charles Goldstuck, has made a minority investment in Podium Entertainment, the audiobook publisher.
The investment was made alongside Flexpoint Ford and Shamrock Capital, which have acquired Podium from Presidio Investors.
The deal was announced on Monday (September 21). The companies did not disclose financial terms.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Podium changed hands for north of USD $400 million, citing people familiar with the matter.
GoldState was founded in 2022 and invests in music rights, music companies, and music technology.
Its investment in Podium takes the West Palm Beach-headquartered firm into book publishing.
GoldState has raised two funds to buy music rights: a partnership with Flexpoint struck in 2023, and a $500 million raise co-led by Northleaf Capital Partners and Ares Management in April 2025.
In February this year, the firm partnered with London-listed Bridgepoint Group on a separate strategy, targeting growth equity investments in music and music-adjacent companies.
GoldState and Flexpoint have backed the same company before: Flexpoint led a $165 million round for Create Music Group in June 2024 that Goldstuck also joined.
According to the announcement, the Podium deal extends Flexpoint‘s “experience in music assets and royalties into audiobook publishing.”
Charles Goldstuck, Managing Partner at GoldState, said: “I had the pleasure of previously partnering with Scott and couldn’t be more excited about backing the team at Podium. We’ve seen firsthand how digital audio can scale when developed under the right production and distribution models.
“Podium is poised to take full advantage of the changing landscape for audio around the globe.”
“We’ve seen firsthand how digital audio can scale when developed under the right production and distribution models. Podium is poised to take full advantage of the changing landscape for audio around the globe.”
Charles Goldstuck, GoldState
“What streaming did for independent musicians, digital audio is doing for independent authors,” said Mike Morris, Managing Director at Flexpoint Ford. “Podium has built a differentiated platform around valuable IP, helping authors reach global audiences while retaining ownership of their work.
“We believe the company is exceptionally well positioned to capitalize on the continued growth of digital audio, and we’re excited to partner with Scott and the entire Podium team to support the next phase of expansion.”
“What streaming did for independent musicians, digital audio is doing for independent authors.”
Mike Morris, Flexpoint Ford
Podium, headquartered in Los Angeles, says it represents more than 3,000 authors and describes itself as the audiobook industry’s third-largest publisher.
Its catalog has grown from roughly 1,200 titles in 2019, when Presidio first invested in the company, to more than 15,000 titles today.
Under Presidio‘s ownership, Podium expanded beyond audio into ebook and print formats and acquired book sales data service Bookstat.
According to Presidio, Podium ranks as the second-largest publisher of romance audiobooks and the largest publisher of science fiction and fantasy audiobooks in the United States.
“We are incredibly proud of the work we’ve accomplished to date on behalf of the thousands of authors and voice actors Podium represents, and alongside the tremendous support we received from Presidio Investors since 2019, but this is just the beginning of our story,” said Scott Dickey, Chief Executive Officer of Podium Entertainment.
“Partnering with the Flexpoint, Shamrock, and GoldState teams represents an opportunity to rapidly extend our capabilities for the authors and storytellers who trust us every day to deliver their stories and grow their audiences.
“We firmly believe in Podium‘s differentiated author service model which is built to attract, support, and retain the best storytellers in the world.”
“Partnering with the Flexpoint, Shamrock, and GoldState teams represents an opportunity to rapidly extend our capabilities for the authors and storytellers who trust us every day to deliver their stories and grow their audiences.”
Scott Dickey, Podium Entertainment
“This is a proud moment for everyone who has been part of the Podium journey since 2019, and we’re excited for what comes next,” said Karl Schade, Managing Partner of Presidio Investors.
Shamrock Capital, which had approximately $7.4 billion of assets under management as of June 30, 2026, invests in media, entertainment, communications, and related sectors.
The Los Angeles-based firm sold the master recordings of Taylor Swift‘s first six albums back to the artist in May 2025.
As part of the Podium transaction, the company is partnering with Ownership Works to establish a program giving all of its employees an ownership stake in the business.
David Kaefer, a former Spotify executive, is joining Podium‘s board of directors.Music Business Worldwide
Advertiser Disclosure: This site is part of affiliate sales networks and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers.
[2026.9 Update] The new welcome bonus is $250, along with the following changes:
The foreign transaction fee (FTF) has been eliminated.
Cell phone protection has been discontinued.
Points Boost is now available for UR point redemptions, offering up to a 10% boost on select hotel bookings. This is pretty useless—even with the boost, redeeming UR points with a Freedom card still isn’t as good as redeeming them with the CSP/CSR.
The card art is updated.
[2024.4 Update] The $200+5% on grocery&gas offer is expired. The current offer is $200.
[2023.7 Update] There is a new $200+5% on grocery&gas offer. Screenshot. [2023.9 Update] Expired. The current offer is $200.
Offer Link
Benefits
$250 offer: earn $250 cash back after spending $500 in the first 3 months.This is one of the best offers on this card.
Earn 5% cash back in each quarter’s bonus categories, 1% cash back on all other purchases. You need to activate beforehand, and the deadline is the 14th of the last month of each quarter, it won’t be activated automatically for a new card. For example, here is the bonus category calendar for 2020:
Earn 5% cash back on travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards, earn 3% cash back on dining (restaurants & delivery) and drugstore, and earn 1% cash back on all other purchases.
Although this card is advertised as a cash back card, it actually earns Ultimate Rewards (UR) points. We estimate that UR points are worth about 1.6 cents/point, see below for a brief introduction. So the 25k sign-up bonus could be worth about $400, and the 5x UR points earning rate on bonus categories could be worth about 8%!
Refer a friend: You can earn 10,000 bonus UR points for every approved account you refer, up to a maximum of 5 approved referrals (50,000 UR points) per calendar year.
Cell phone protection: get up to $800 per claim and $1,000 per year in cell phone protection against covered theft or damage for phones listed on your monthly cell phone bill when you pay it with your eligible credit card. Deductible $50.[Update] This benefit is eliminated as of 2026.9.
[New] No foreign transaction fee.
No annual fee.
Disadvantages
You have a $1,500 cap in 5% bonus categories per quarter, which means you can earn up to 7.5k points per bonus category each quarter. After that, you earn 1 point per dollar spent.
Introduction to UR Points
You can earn UR points with Chase Freedom Student, Chase Freedom, Chase Freedom Unlimited (CFU), Chase Sapphire Preferred (CSP), Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR), Chase Ink Cash (Business), Chase Ink Unlimited (Business), Chase Ink Preferred (Business), etc.
You can move your UR points from one UR card to another at any time.
UR points never expire. You will lose the UR points on one card if you close the account, but you can prevent losing your UR points by moving the points to another UR card beforehand.
If you have Chase Sapphire Preferred (CSP), Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR), or Chase Ink Preferred (Business), UR points can be transferred to some hotel points. One of the best ways to use UR points is to 1:1 transfer to Hyatt points. UR points can also be transferred to some airline miles. One of the most common and best ways to use UR points is to 1:1 transfer them to United Airlines (UA) miles (Star Alliance), and combine them with the UA miles earned from the UA card. Other good options are: Southwest (WN) (Non-alliance), British Airways (BA) (Oneworld), Virgin Atlantic (VS) (Non-alliance), etc. If you use UR points in this way, the value is about 1.6 cents/point.
If you have Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR), you can redeem your UR points for up to 2.0 cents/point towards air tickets or hotels on Chase Travel with the “Points Boost” feature; if you have Chase Sapphire Preferred (CSP) or Chase Ink Preferred (Business), the value is up to 1.5 cpp (or 1.75 cpp for premium cabin).
If you have any of the UR cards, you can redeem your UR points at a fixed rate 1 cent/point towards cash.
In summary, we estimate that UR points are worth about 1.6 cents/point.
For more information about UR points, see Maximize the Credit Card Points Values (overview), and Introduction to UR: How to Earn and Introduction to UR: How to Use (very detailed).
Recommended Application Time
[5/24 Rule] If you have 5 or more new accounts opened in the past 24 months, Chase will not approve your application, no matter how high your credit score is. The number of new accounts includes all credit card accounts, not only Chase accounts. See this post for details about how to possibly bypass this rule.
This product is available to you if you do not have this card and have not received a new cardmember bonus for this card in the past 24 months. Note that what matters here is the time you got the sign-up bonus, not the time you open the account or close the account.
Don’t apply for more than 2 Chase credit cards within 30 days, or it’s highly likely that you will get rejected.
If you have more than $10,000 deposits in Chase checking, you can get this card even with no credit history at all. You can go to a branch and find a banker to apply for this credit card directly through Special Consideration. Special Consideration is no longer available.
We recommend you to apply for this card after you have a credit history for more than 8~9 months.
Note that you can not have more than one Freedom Flex card at the same time, therefore you can not increase its 5% bonus categories spending limit by holding multiple cards. [Update] Actual data points show that you can still get multiple of this card by product change.
Summary
This Chase Freedom Flex (CFF) card is an upgrade from the old Chase Freedom card. Pretty like the old Freedom card, you can mainly use it on the 3x (~4.8%) and 5x (~8%) bonus categories. After you accumulate enough UR points, you can apply for a CSP/CSR and then transfer these UR points to airline miles/hotel points to get maximum value out of your points. The old Freedom card is already a fantastic card, and this upgraded CFF card is even better! This card makes a lot of other dining credit cards less attractive. Everyone should have one!
You can apply directly for this card if under 5/24, otherwise you can do a product change (from other Freedom cards or Sapphire cards) to obtain it.
Related Credit Cards
After Applying
Call 800-436-7927 to check Chase application status. This is an automated telephone line, and the information has the following meanings: Receive decision in 2 weeks means your application is probably approved; Receive decision in 7-10 days means your application is probably rejected; Receive decision in 30 days simply means your application requires further review and there’s nothing to tell you for now.
Historical Offers Chart
Note that sometimes there is a $200 + 5% on grocery in the first year offer, and the latter part is not shown in the plot.
Offer Link
Editorial disclosure: Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
If you like this post, don’t forget to give it a 5 star rating!
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It’s hard to argue with a purchase price of $160,000 and a median monthly rent of $1,300, even in a high interest rate climate. Those median figures are why Birmingham, Alabama, has topped Realtor.com’s list of the top 50 U.S. cities for investors.
Birmingham had the highest net share of investor homebuyers in the nation in 2025, with 21% of sales going to investors and 14.4% of sellers also being investors, giving it a net investor purchase share of 6.6%.
A Cash Flow City
While “cash flow” seems to be a quaint, bygone term for many investors, in Birmingham these days it’s still very much in play.
“In Birmingham, the money is in the rent check, not the resale,” Cameron Walker of Clever Real Estate told Realtor.com. “That’s the whole story of why investors hold.”
Realtor.com’s top 10 list of cash-flowing cities is as follows, along with the percent of investor buyers holding properties:
Birmingham, Alabama: 6.6%
Memphis, Tennessee: 6.2%
Kansas City, Missouri: 5.7%
St. Louis, Missouri: 4.6%
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: 4.4%
Columbus, Ohio: 4.3%
Miami, Florida: 4.2%
New York, New York: 3.4%
Cleveland, Ohio: 3.4%
Salt Lake City, Utah: 3.1%
Realtor.com senior economist Hannah Jones said of the report:
“Seven of the metros—Memphis, Birmingham, Kansas City, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Cleveland—are classic cash-flow markets where affordable entry prices, climbing rents, landlord-friendly tax environments, and durable renter demand attract investors. Miami and New York are outliers driven by big investors buying in because prices are expected to keep rising and it’s easy to sell later, rather than to earn steady rental income.”
Be Careful Picking Your Investment Location in Birmingham
Bolstering Birmingham’s credibility as a solid investment are its robust healthcare system, a large, recurring student base (the University of Alabama), and financial institutions. Unsurprisingly, neighborhoods close to major employers are in high demand.
For investors, the cash flow sweet spot is solid B- to C+ areas. According to Spartan Invest, these areas are:
Center Point/Roebuck (ZIP code 35215): A staple single-family turnkey area
Bessemer (ZIP code 35022): The Amazon fulfillment center and industrial distribution are major employers.
Hueytown and Pleasant Grove (ZIP codes 35023, 35127): West of the city center, a working-class suburban neighborhood with long-term tenants.
Pinson/Grayson Valley (ZIP codes 35126, 35235): Slightly pricier, more upscale neighborhood with affordable suburban living. Likely less cash flow, but fewer headaches too.
Emerging/hybrid areas: Appreciation plus cash flow. These areas, sometimes priced below $100K, offer cash flow but at a cost. The areas are gentrifying and will take five to 10 years to stabilize, so property management could be more labor-intensive.
Stable B+ Cash Flow/Growth Hybrid Markets
Houses here cost between $180,000 and $250,000. If you don’t mind trading lower cash flow and modest appreciation for better-quality tenants, investing here will put the passive in passive income and is good for long-term holds:
Fultondale & Gardendale (ZIP codes 35068, 35071)
Alabaster & Pelham (Shelby County; ZIP codes 35124, 35007, 35114, and 35144 )
Other Markets in Alabama Worth Considering
If you’re wary about the investor gold rush occurring in Birmingham but like the Southern climate and low property taxes and income taxesin Alabama, other cities you might consider investing in include the following.
Huntsville
Houses here are more expensive (according to Zillow, they average $290,453), but there is a solid employment base in aerospace, defense, engineering, and technology supporting high-income residents.Axios reported in July that defense manufacturer Redwire plans to extend its Huntsville operation by 164,000 square feet, adding 150 new skilled jobs.
Make no mistake: Huntsville is a long-term investment play, not a short-term one.
Mobile
Further south, Mobile offers a different take on investing in Alabama. Gulf Coast industries such as manufacturing, shipbuilding, and the Port of Alabama, and affordable prices (the median price for a single-family home is around $199,226) below the acquisition costs of other expanding Sunbelt metros, with rents of roughly $1,293, put this market in neutral territory cash flow-wise but dip into negative numbers when storm-related insurance and maintenance are factored in.
Montgomery
This benefits from employment in government, the military, and education. Again, affordable home prices (a median single-family home is just over $152,082, and average rents are $1,347) put this in possible positive cash-flow territory.
Investing here is about finding modestly priced properties in decent neighborhoods near a reliable employment and tenant pool. It’s less of a stampede than Birmingham but requires a more nuanced approach.
A Look at Memphis and Mississippi for the Closest Southern Comparisons to Birmingham
Memphis, Tennessee, and Mississippi are also well worth considering along with Birmingham if you like the idea of investing in markets away from the colder Northeast and Midwest.
Realtor.com ranked Memphis second behind Birmingham for net investor buying, with a median listing price of only $167,000. There’s not much to choose between the two cities. For landlords, the final selection might come down to neighborhood-level taxes, insurance, crime, and other day-to-day management costs, as well as the quality of the housing stock.
Mississippi is also reasonably affordable (median house prices are around $196,333). It has recently enjoyed high appreciation, although the added cost of coastal insurance is a big deciding factor in whether to invest here.
Final Thoughts: Resist the Hype and Make Sure the Numbers Work
It’s not difficult to see why investing in Birmingham is so appealing. In a market where very few of the numbers add up, Birmingham is a cash-flowing ray of sunshine.
But it is already a very investor-heavy city, and over 14% of its investors have sold to other investors. Why? Birmingham is not known for high appreciation, so if the cash flow is so great, why sell?
Often, boots-on-the-ground investing stories are very different from those written from the luxury of a laptop in an office. Investors have to consider things that don’t show up on an economist’s calculations: the cost of utilities, the officiousness of Section 8 and city property inspectors, and crime, along with the customary costs of vacancies, taxes and insurance, and repairs.
Running the numbers meticulously and comparing different neighborhoods, neighboring cities, and states will give you a clearer overall picture of which Southern city is best for parking your investment dollars.
One thing’s for sure: Birmingham should be in the conversation.
Every day, we fret about small changes in mortgage rates, even if it amounts to just a handful of basis points.
The 30-year fixed climbed from 7.17% to 7.22%! Oh no!
Meanwhile, there are lenders out there offering the same loan for nearly one full percentage point higher.
Some lenders are offering a rate of 6.125%, while others will only give you 6.99% for the same basic loan scenario.
This all points to it being absolutely imperative to shop around instead of worrying about daily rate movement.
Shopping Rates Is More Important Than Tracking Rates
I’m all for tracking mortgage rates. I do it all the time. Daily in fact.
But I also run this mortgage blog and like to keep an eye on things for prospective home buyers and those looking to refinance an existing mortgage.
If you’re a consumer, tracking rates might be a waste of time, or a little too “in the weeds.”
There might actually be much more value or better ROI in shopping rates instead.
At the end of the day, mortgage rates are going to go what they’re going to do.
Whether that’s go up, go down, or move sideways.
And while us pundits can guess which way they’re going to go, or make fancy forecasts, they’re often going to be wrong.
Why? Because like anything else, it’s hard to make accurate predictions.
Very few expected the U.S-Iran conflict to break out, leading to rates climbing more than a full percentage point higher in the span of six months.
Yet here we are…facing the highest rates since early 2025 and the threat they could move even higher still.
Try out my new mortgage rate calculator to compare various rates side by side.
Control What You Can Control by Shopping Mortgage Rates Instead
Instead of worrying about rate movement from day to day, or month to month, control what you can control.
That means getting your house in order, whether it’s increasing your credit scores to obtain the best loan pricing or saving up a larger down payment to avoid mortgage insurance.
At the same time, no matter what rates are doing, the very best use of your time could be shopping rates.
Despite the 30-year fixed being the same exact loan offered by dozens and dozens of different lenders, it can be priced completely differently on any given day.
Take this screenshot above of a list of lenders offering a 30-year fixed on a typical home purchase.
The cheapest lender on the list was offering a quote of 6.12% with just shy of two discount points.
And the most expensive lender on the list was offering a quote of 6.99% with about 1.75 in discount points.
Same Loan, Different Price: Why Pay More?
This was for the same exact loan scenario, e.g. same down payment, loan amount, credit score, etc.
The end result is a monthly payment that is $200 cheaper (or more expensive) for the same exact mortgage.
It’s not like one comes with different features, like leather seats, or some other actual differentiator.
They’re all just plain old 30-year fixed mortgages with completely different prices.
Kind of like when you go to the grocery store and they have the store brand right next to the name brand product.
Because lenders market themselves and try to sell a commodity as if theirs is better for X, Y, or Z reason.
This means the best thing you can do is shop amongst lenders offering the same exact thing and find the cheapest, most competent one.
The last bit is important though. You need a lender that can actually close your loan. Because what good is a cheap loan that never funds?
(photo: Eden, Janine and Jim)
Before creating this site, I worked as an account executive for a wholesale mortgage lender in Los Angeles. My hands-on experience in the early 2000s inspired me to begin writing about mortgages 20 years ago to help prospective (and existing) home buyers better navigate the home loan process. Follow me on X for hot takes.
Sometimes there’s just too much to do. In our Insider Insights surveys over the past year, HBR subscribers have consistently reported a common pain point: The sheer volume of work you and your teams are juggling. Whether the cause is AI, layoffs, a budget crisis, all of the above—or something else entirely—everything can feel futile when it’s impossible to make progress.
