NPR.

There is a

There is a

There is a mystery in the

there is a mystery in the mortgage market. The long-running relationship

between mortgage interest rates and 10-year Treasury bonds, 10-year loans to the

US government, has changed.

That's right.

In normal times, mortgage interest rates are usually a little less than 2 percentage points

higher than what you would get on a 10-year Treasury.

So let's say treasuries are paying 4%,

you would expect a mortgage interest rate of a little less than 6%.

But over the last couple of years,

that relationship has broken down.

One of our listeners Matt Gazulis noticed this and asked us about it.

I had noticed that they had been above 2% and historically speaking that is very high.

Matt, we are on the case, we're going to figure out what is happening here.

This is the indicator from Planet Money, I'm Waylon Wong.

And I'm Darien Woods. Today on the show how mortgage interest rates work and why they are currently

out of whack with new borrowers footing the bill. This message is brought to you by Warby Parker.

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