These are today's mortgage and refinance rates. Mortgage rates have increased a bit as markets look to whether the Fed will cut rates in December.

Mortgage costs are rising - with the average rate on a two-year fixed deal now at 5.5% - despite a recent cut in interest rates. A string of lenders, including Barclays, HSBC, NatWest and Nationwide, have increased the rates charged on new fixed deals in recent days.

The Fed has two main objectives: maintain maximum employment and contain inflation. Although one single data point is never decisive, when inflation is high, the Fed generally raises interest rates to slow demand. When the unemployment rate is high, the Fed often lowers interest rates to stimulate consumer activity.

Mortgage rates aren’t directly tied to the federal funds rate like savings and CDs. Instead, they’re tied to the 10-year Treasury yield, which is at its highest level in three months.

Though the Federal Reserve has been cutting interest rates, mortgage rates have been increasing or holding steady. When will potential homeowners see mortgage relief.

When the Federal Reserve lowered its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point in September, it wasn't a particularly surprising move. At that point, the Fed was expected to make its first rate cut of the year in response to cooling inflation.

Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee on Friday signaled he feels the U.S. central bank will likely end up cutting the policy rate by another quarter of a percentage point this year and a full percentage point further next year,

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Thursday that interest rates are still expected to decline further, but suggested they might not be that much lower over the next few months.