Wall Street kicked off a pivotal week on a strong note Monday, and anyone focused on buying a home in Myrtle Beach has some genuinely encouraging developments to work through. Stocks rallied across the board after Anthropic filed paperwork with the SEC to list on the Nasdaq, reigniting enthusiasm for the broader AI trade just as a heavy run of Big Tech earnings and a two-day Federal Reserve meeting get underway. Oil prices eased on hopes that tensions between the U.S. and Iran are cooling, the 10-year Treasury yield held just under 5%, and mortgage rate trackers nudged slightly lower to close out the session. Here’s what moved in the markets today, where mortgage rates and the 10-year Treasury yield actually stand, and what the real dollar math looks like for anyone weighing buying a home in Myrtle Beach this week.
Today’s Market Snapshot
All three major indexes closed firmly higher Monday, with the rally gaining steam as the session wore on. The S&P 500 climbed 53.12 points, or 0.70%, to close at 7,676.80. The Nasdaq Composite led the way, adding 214.04 points, or 0.82%, to finish at 26,169.38, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 146.36 points, or 0.28%, to settle at 52,361.52. The CBOE Volatility Index, often called Wall Street’s fear gauge, dropped sharply, falling about 5.45% to close at 18.39 — a clear sign that the nervousness that lingered after last week’s tech selloff eased considerably as the new week opened.
The headline driver was Anthropic’s filing to go public on the Nasdaq under the ticker ANT, which rippled through AI-adjacent names and helped pull the broader market higher after a rocky stretch. The filing landed on top of an already busy backdrop: investors are bracing for a dense earnings week that includes Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon, alongside a two-day Federal Open Market Committee meeting that begins Tuesday. Markets are overwhelmingly pricing in a hold from the Fed, with only a small minority of traders expecting any shift at this meeting. Elsewhere in the AI-infrastructure story, Meta disclosed plans for a roughly $95 billion stock raise to fund its AI buildout, and SpaceX secured $40 billion in debt financing tied to AI chip purchases — reminders that the capital pouring into this buildout keeps climbing.
Commodities moved opposite stocks today. Oil prices slipped as hopes grew that U.S.-Iran tensions might be de-escalating, a reversal from the worries that pushed crude to multi-month highs last week; West Texas Intermediate eased back toward the $101 range. Gold held relatively steady near $4,025 an ounce, consistent with a day where equities, not safe havens, were the preferred destination for new money. In corporate deal news, energy producer EQT agreed to acquire Range Resources in a transaction valued above $50 billion, one of the sector’s larger tie-ups this year.
The Rate Picture for Buying a Home in Myrtle Beach: A Quiet Step in the Right Direction
This is the section that matters most for anyone actively working on buying a home in Myrtle Beach, and Monday’s reading was modestly encouraging without being dramatic. The 10-year Treasury yield, which mortgage rates track closely, sat around 4.98% today, essentially flat to a touch lower than Friday’s close near 5.00%. That stability comes just ahead of the Fed’s two-day meeting this week, where policymakers are expected to hold their benchmark rate steady in the 3.75%–4.00% range set after September’s move — meaning today’s calm in the bond market reflects a market that’s already largely priced in a wait-and-see outcome rather than bracing for a surprise.
Real-time rate trackers picked up on that same gentle easing. Multiple daily rate indexes put the 30-year fixed at approximately 7.23% today, down a few basis points from Friday’s reading in the mid-7.2% range and modestly below where the week started. That continues a pattern that’s held for much of October: daily trackers have drifted lower in small increments, even as the broader rate backdrop stays elevated by historical standards. The slower-moving benchmark most households use for budgeting is still Freddie Mac’s official weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey, last released Thursday, which put the 30-year fixed at 7.32%, down 8 basis points from the prior week’s 7.40%. That survey only updates once a week and won’t reflect today’s session until Thursday’s release, but it remains the most-cited figure for anyone planning a purchase around buying a home in Myrtle Beach rather than trying to time a single day’s rate.
For year-over-year context, Freddie Mac’s survey from this same week in 2025 put the 30-year fixed at just 6.19%, itself down from 6.27% the week before. That comparison is the one that really puts today’s backdrop in perspective: even with daily trackers easing toward the low 7% range and the official weekly survey down two weeks running, rates remain more than a full percentage point above where they sat twelve months ago — a gap that matters enormously once you turn it into an actual monthly payment, which is exactly what the next section does.
The Real Math: What Today’s Rate Actually Means for Your Payment
Percentages only mean something once you turn them into an actual mortgage payment, so let’s run the numbers on a $350,000 mortgage, a realistic loan size for a solid share of Grand Strand purchases, using the standard 30-year amortization formula rather than a rough estimate.
At today’s real-time tracker rate of 7.23%, the monthly principal and interest payment on that $350,000 loan comes to $2,382.87. Compare that to a tracker reading of 7.28% from earlier last week, which would have put the same loan at $2,394.74 a month — a difference of $11.87 a month, or about $142 a year, from the past week’s modest rate relief.
The more rigorous comparison uses Freddie Mac’s official weekly figures on both ends, since that survey is the one lenders and underwriters actually treat as the benchmark. At this week’s Freddie Mac rate of 7.32%, that same $350,000 loan runs $2,404.26 a month, versus $2,423.33 a month at last week’s 7.40% — a difference of $19.07 a month, or roughly $229 a year, from the past week’s rate relief alone. The bigger number, as usual, is the year-over-year comparison: at last year’s Freddie Mac rate of 6.19%, the identical $350,000 loan would have cost just $2,141.37 a month, a gap of $262.89 more a month, or roughly $3,155 a year, from where rates sit today versus twelve months ago.
Run that same year-over-year comparison on a $500,000 loan, a size plenty of buyers relocating from pricier markets are used to carrying, and the gap widens to $375.55 more a month, or roughly $4,507 a year — larger in dollar terms, since every basis point of rate movement costs more as the loan amount climbs. That’s the clearest illustration of why loan size matters just as much as the rate headline when you’re trying to understand what buying a home in Myrtle Beach will actually cost month to month.
Why Buying a Home in Myrtle Beach Still Makes Sense in This Rate Environment
A rally driven by AI-IPO excitement and a calmer outlook on the Middle East is a welcome change of pace after a rocky stretch for stocks, but the more durable story for anyone focused on buying a home in Myrtle Beach is what more than a year of elevated borrowing costs has already done to this market. Fewer buyers can comfortably qualify at rates still in the low-to-mid 7% range, which means less competition for well-priced listings, homes sitting longer on the market, and sellers considerably more willing to negotiate than during the ultra-low-rate years. Price reductions, closing-cost credits, and seller-funded rate buydowns remain realistically on the table for a well-prepared buyer, and that negotiating leverage doesn’t evaporate just because one day’s headlines turn more upbeat.
South Carolina’s broader cost of living does a lot of quiet work here too. The loan-size comparison above makes the point plainly: the identical rate move costs a $500,000 borrower noticeably more than a $350,000 borrower, even though the percentage move is exactly the same. A smaller typical loan amount is a genuine cushion against rate volatility, and it’s one of the clearest advantages of shopping the Grand Strand rather than a comparably sized home in a higher-cost part of the country. Browse what’s currently available along the coast to get a feel for what today’s rates and prices translate to in real, available listings.
What a Rally Ahead of Fed Week Means for Buyers Watching From the Sidelines
A nearly 1% gain in the Nasdaq, a sharp drop in volatility, and mortgage rates that eased a touch on every tracker we checked adds up to a session that gives buyers more reason for optimism than last week’s turbulence did. The practical approach that holds up no matter which direction headlines break next remains familiar: marry the house, date the rate. Buy the right home at a price today’s market supports, and refinance later if rates come down further once the Fed and this week’s earnings parade have had their say.
Getting pre-approved now, before you’ve settled on a specific property, remains one of the most useful moves available in a market like this. It swaps a confusing headline percentage for your actual rate and budget, and puts you in position to move decisively the moment a motivated seller is ready to talk.
A day with an AI-driven rally, a Treasury yield holding just under 5%, and a Freddie Mac rate down two weeks running is, on balance, an encouraging setup for anyone focused on buying a home in Myrtle Beach. The bottom line: today’s rate math is still meaningfully better than it will look if the Fed surprises markets later this week, the cost-of-living advantage versus pricier markets held up even as Wall Street’s attention shifted to AI headlines, and the negotiating leverage built up over a year of elevated rates remains squarely on the buyer’s side heading into a busy week for markets.
If you’d like help running these numbers for your own situation, connect with our team and we’ll walk through exactly what today’s rates and your specific loan amount mean for your budget, rather than leaving you to guess from a single day’s headlines.