Mortgage rates survive jobs data as focus remains on Middle East 🏠📉☮️

Flash Market Update

May 09, 2026

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As pointed out in the week ahead, the weeklong deluge of jobs data was more likely to hurt mortgage rates than help, as the focus would remain on the Iran peace talks.

Fortunately, no damage was done despite the Non-Farm Payroll surprise, which showed more new payrolls (115k vs 62k) than expected.

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The dramatic decline in immigration and labor force participation has resulted in a shift in focus from bond traders.

Greater emphasis is now placed on the unemployment rate, which remained unchanged at 4.3%.

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In the end, mortgage bonds clawed back about half of last week’s losses, keeping mortgage rates slightly ahead on the month.

The above chart is from the LendZen Index, which tracks rates across a variety of time series and is posted daily on Substack at LendZenIndex.com

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If you want to shop real-time mortgage rates and get instant qualification results without providing any contact information visit LendZen.com

The below snapshot is just a glimpse of today’s rates, but the pricing you see is exactly what you get - there are no additional lender fees or origination charges.