The most common thing I get asked after a rate quote is whether to wait for the Fed’s next meeting. It is a reasonable question and the answer surprises most people: the Fed does not set mortgage rates.
What the Fed actually controls
The federal funds rate is an overnight bank-to-bank lending rate. It moves credit cards, home equity lines and other short-term borrowing fairly directly. A 30-year mortgage is not short-term borrowing, and it does not track that rate.
What mortgage rates follow
Mortgage rates track the market for mortgage-backed securities, which in turn moves with the 10-year Treasury yield and with what investors expect inflation to do over the coming years. That is why rates sometimes fall on the day the Fed raises, and rise on the day it cuts: the market had already priced in the expected move, and reacted to whatever the announcement said about what comes next.
Why this matters for locking
Waiting for a Fed meeting to lock is usually a bet on something that has already been priced in. The better question is your own timeline: if you are under contract with a closing date, the risk of a rate rising before then is a real cost, and the certainty of a lock has value regardless of direction.
If you want to see what the current market means for your specific numbers, the calculator prices your scenario in about two minutes without a credit pull.