Deloitte economist Michael Wolf says the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield will ease gradually through the second quarter of 2027 before settling at 3.9% from the third quarter of 2027 through the end of 2030. For homebuyers and people thinking about refinancing, that is the number to watch because mortgage rates usually move in the same direction as Treasury yields.
The forecast matters now because mortgage rates have been volatile since the beginning of the Middle East conflict, and borrowers are still trying to gauge whether today’s higher costs will fade or stick. On March 5, the 10-year Treasury yield stood at 4.09% and the 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 6.00%, leaving a spread of 1.91 percentage points. That gap is one reason mortgage rates have eased, but it still leaves borrowing costs well above the levels that prevailed from 2010 to 2020, when the spread was often near 1.5 percentage points and stayed under two points.
Wolf’s view starts with the Fed. He said Deloitte assumes the central bank leaves rates unchanged until December 2026, then the average federal funds rate reaches its neutral 3.125% in the middle of 2027. After that, he sees the 10-year Treasury drifting lower before leveling off at 3.9% for more than three years. That is the clearest date-specific road map now on offer for where mortgage pricing could head over the next five years.
The wider market is not lining up neatly behind that path. Goldman Sachs analysts see the 10-year Treasury rising to 4.5% by 2035, while the Congressional Budget Office projects 4.1% by the end of 2026 and about 4.3% by 2030. Those forecasts point to a somewhat higher long-term yield than Deloitte does, which would likely leave mortgage rates firmer if the spread between mortgages and Treasurys does not narrow further.
That spread is the key friction point for borrowers. Mortgage rates are usually higher than the 10-year Treasury because lenders build in extra risk, and the difference has been influenced by prepayment risk, credit risk and the supply of mortgage-backed securities. After 2022, the Federal Reserve’s quantitative tightening program widened spreads as private markets absorbed more of that debt. More recently, those spreads have begun normalizing in late 2025 and are expected to keep tightening, which is why mortgage rates can fall even if Treasury yields do not move sharply lower.
The next hard checkpoint in Deloitte’s forecast is December 2026, when Wolf assumes the Fed still has not changed rates. After that, the question is whether Treasury yields settle near 3.9% or drift closer to the higher path sketched by Goldman Sachs and the Congressional Budget Office. For anyone shopping for a home loan, the answer will help determine whether mortgage rates today turn out to be a pause or the start of a longer decline.
