The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage hit 3.7% Tuesday morning, according to Mortgage News Daily. That is the highest since early April 2020 and now 83 basis points higher than the same time one year ago. Rates are reacting to surging bond yields, as financial markets react to swifter and more aggressive monetary policy tightening by the Federal Reserve. Mortgage rates loosely follow the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury, but they are also affected by demand for mortgage-backed bonds. The Fed had been buying those bonds aggressively during the pandemic in order to keep rates low, but it is now pulling out of the MBS market faster than expected. Mortgage rates, "would be higher, but lenders are compressing their margins to compete in a rising rate environment. Some will be at 3.625%, but many are already up to 3.75%," said Matthew Graham, COO of Mortgage News Daily. Lenders are losing vast amounts of refinance business, which had been booming just a year ago