Short answer. The annual average 30-year fixed mortgage rate in 1990 was 10.13%, the lowest reading since 1979 and a sign that the long post-Volcker decline was finally underway.
The 1990 annual average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 10.13% per the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey. That was down from 10.32% in 1989 and would fall to 9.25% in 1991 — the start of the long secular decline that would carry rates below 7% by 1998.
Context — the late-Volcker normalization
Paul Volcker had stepped down in 1987, replaced by Alan Greenspan. By 1990 the inflation regime that had defined the late 1970s and early 1980s was decisively broken: CPI inflation averaged 5.4% for the year (and would moderate to 4.2% in 1991), the federal funds rate was 8.1%, and the Fed had room to ease as the recession that began in July 1990 took hold.
1990 housing-market context
The U.S. existing-home median price actually fell 1.2% in 1990 — to $92,000, down from $93,100 in 1989 — the first nominal annual decline in the modern NAR series. Existing-home sales were 3.21M, down 4% YoY, as the savings-and-loan crisis weighed on regional markets including Texas, Florida, and parts of New England.
How 1990 compares to today
The 10.13% rate of 1990 is roughly 3.3 percentage points above the 2024 reading of 6.84%, but the affordability picture is wholly different. In 1990 the median existing home cost roughly 3.1× median household income; by 2024 that ratio had reached 5.4×, the highest reading on record.
Sources
U.S. Census Bureau Survey of Construction; National Association of Realtors Existing Home Sales report; Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey; National Bureau of Economic Research Business Cycle Dating Committee.