Mortgage rates surged to their highest level since September on Friday as bond yields moved higher due to the war in Iran.

The average rate on the 30-year fixed loan hit 6.41%, according to Mortgage News Daily. That is the highest rate since the first week of September, but still below the 6.78% notched at the same time last year.

Mortgage rates loosely follow the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury, which were up again Friday.

“This is counterintuitive for those who expect bonds to serve as a safe haven in times of uncertainty, but when war has a direct impact on inflation expectations, it’s more than enough to offset any of the safe haven benefit that might otherwise be seen,” wrote Matthew Graham, chief operating officer at Mortgage News Daily.

Even as rates began rising last week, mortgage demand from homebuyers rose, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, but this week’s new surge could put a damper on the spring season, which is already plagued by other major headwinds.

Lennar, one of the nation’s largest homebuilders, reported disappointing first-quarter earnings. Its CEO, Stuart Miller, described headwinds for the broader market as including “high mortgage rates, constrained affordability, cautious consumer sentiment, and geopolitical uncertainty, especially now including the recent conflict in Iran.”

Just two weeks ago, rates had dropped to match a multiyear low, briefly touching 5.99%. Now, any savings from those lower rates is gone.

For someone buying a $400,000 home, around the national median, with 20% down on a 30-year fixed mortgage, the monthly payment is now about $115 more than it would have been two weeks ago.

Sen. Tim Scott on Wednesday said he hopes the federal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell “goes away” so the Senate can take up the nomination of Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump’s pick to replace the head of the U.S. central bank.

“That proceeding going away allows for us to get the Fed fully functioning, back on target,” Scott, who chairs the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, said during an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., has vowed to hold up any Fed nominees until a federal criminal investigation into Powell is resolved. Trump floated the idea of firing Powell last year and lashed out at the Fed chair for refusing to cut interest rates to the extent he desired. Powell has denied any wrongdoing and has said he is being targeted for refusing to accede to Trump’s demands.

Powell was expected to testify before Congress on Feb. 11, but missed that date because of the federal probe, Scott said.

“I had a conversation with Jay about his testimony,” Scott said. “I recommended that he come before the committee.”

“At this point he is more concerned about the criminal proceeding ,” he said. “And I get that.”

The Fed did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tillis is otherwise supportive of Warsh, who Trump nominated for the role in January, but doubled down on his blockade after meeting with the Fed nominee on Tuesday.

“This is not about people, it’s about process,” Tillis said. “I think this is a foul.”

“This is about this is bedrock principle of Fed independence,” Tillis told reporters Tuesday. “I have no earthly idea what the market reaction would have been if suddenly the perception is that the Fed chair serves at the pleasure of the president.”

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., another Banking committee member, told CNBC earlier Wednesday he sees no reason why some Democrats won’t support Warsh’s nomination.

“There’s really no reason by anything from he’s ever said or that he’s done that, that Democrats shouldn’t support his nomination,” Cramer, who was scheduled to meet with Warsh on Wednesday, said. “They’re going to be rigorous, of course, in their interviewing of him and and the cross examination … when his hearing takes place. But I think we should be on track to get him across the finish line so that there’s no gap between … the end of Jay Powell’s term and the beginning of the new term.”

The investigation into Powell is in part based on testimony Powell gave to the Senate Banking committee last year. Scott has said in the past that he did not believe Powell committed a crime in his testimony, sentiment he repeated Wednesday. He said the Senate would begin confirmation hearings for Warsh “as soon as possible.”

“At the end of the day … when he was before the committee he definitely was unprepared,” Scott said of Powell. “I think he was woefully unprepared. But he did not commit a criminal act when he was before the committee.”

Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee said Tuesday that interest rate cuts aren’t appropriate until there’s more evidence that inflation is on its way down.

With recent indicators showing that inflation well off its highs but still above the Fed’s 2% target, Goolsbee noted that policymakers “have been burned by assuming transitory inflation” in the past and shouldn’t make the same mistake again.

“I feel that front-loading too many rate cuts is not prudent in that circumstance,” he said in remarks before the National Association for Business Economics at its annual gathering in Washington, D.C. “People express that prices are one of their most pressing concerns. Let’s pay attention. Before we cut rates more to stimulate the economy, let’s be sure inflation is heading back to 2%.”

The most recent inflation data, for December, showed core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, running at 3%, as measured by the consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s primary forecasting gauge. That was up 0.2 percentage point from November and came somewhat due to tariffs, which are viewed as temporary, but also from underlying pressures in the service sector and areas not directly impacted by the duties.

Specifically, Goolsbee said stubbornly high housing inflation isn’t tariff driven, emphasizing the need for the Fed to be “vigilant.”

Goolsbee noted that a 3% inflation rate “is not good enough — and it’s not what we promised when the Federal Reserve committed to the 2% target. Stalling out at 3% is not a safe place to be for a myriad of reasons we know all too well.” He has said previously that he thinks the Fed will be able to cut later in the year.

The remarks come with markets expecting the Federal Open Market Committee, of which Goolsbee is a voter this year, to stay on hold until at least June and probably July. Futures traders are placing about a 50-50 chance of a cut in June and about a 71% probability of a July cut, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch gauge. The Fed enacted three quarter-percentage-point cuts in the latter part of 2025.

Fed Governor Christopher Waller, who has been an advocate for lower rates, took a more measured approach Monday while also speaking to the NABE conference.

Though Waller said he thinks policymakers should “look through” tariff impacts, he said recent data show the labor market may be in better shape than previously indicated, mitigating the need for further cuts. If the jobs picture continues to improve, that would further lessen the case for cuts, though he said he isn’t convinced that the January nonfarm payrolls data wasn’t “more noise than signal.”

Tuesday will be an active day Fed speakers, with Governor Lisa Cook also due to present to the NABE later in the morning.