Iran war’s oil shock reaches metro Denver kitchen tables and closing tables

DENVER — The war with Iran is being fought half a world away, but Coloradans are paying for it at the gas pump and on their mortgage statements. On Friday’s broadcast of The Kim Monson Show, mortgage specialist Lorne Levy and RE/MAX realtor Karen Levine, both longtime sponsors of the program, walked through how a distant conflict has become a kitchen-table cost for front-range households. The chain runs from a closed shipping strait to crude oil, from crude to broad inflation and Treasury yields, and from yields to the rate a metro-Denver family pays to buy a home.

Where rates and gas prices sit this week

The picture this week is a step backward for affordability. Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey put the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 6.51 percent for the week of May 21, up from 6.36 percent the prior week and well above the 6.86 percent of a year ago. Quoted rates with points run a notch higher, which is why Levy described current 30-year pricing landing in the mid 6.5 to 6.75 range. The 10-year Treasury yield, the benchmark that mortgages track, peaked at 4.69 percent on Tuesday, its highest level since January 2025, before easing to roughly 4.57 percent later in the week.

At the pump, the squeeze is sharper. AAA reports the national average for regular at about $4.56 a gallon, a four-year high, with Colorado near $4.76, the ninth most expensive market in the country. Gas has climbed more than a dollar a gallon from a year ago and from this winter’s lows. AAA ties the elevated prices directly to “the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz,” and warns that with summer demand rising, prices are likely to stay high through the travel season.

How oil prices reach a mortgage statement

The conflict with Iran, which began in late February, has functionally closed the Strait of Hormuz, which the U.S. Energy Information Administration calls the world’s most important oil chokepoint, carrying roughly a fifth of global petroleum consumption. Brent crude surged more than 55 percent from the start of the war, reaching nearly $120 a barrel at its peak before pulling back, dipping below $100 at times as the strait briefly reopened, according to CNBC. Rory Johnston, the Commodity Context founder quoted in that coverage, called it the largest oil supply shock in the history of the oil market.

Crude is the largest single input in the price of gasoline, accounting for more than half of the pump price over the past decade, according to the EIA; before the war, the agency had forecast that gasoline prices would fall 6 percent in 2026. Oil also flows into plastics, trucking and jet fuel, so the cost shows up across the economy. Levy noted that this feeds the broader inflation that pressures mortgage, home-equity-line and credit-card rates alike. The market connection is direct: long-term Treasury yields now move with oil prices, and the 10-year yield is the benchmark for mortgages. When oil rises, yields rise, and mortgage rates follow. Levy also noted that the strait carries more than crude; agricultural products and feed move through it as well, which he sees lifting prices at the grocery store. Colorado adds a seasonal factor in the summer reformulated-gasoline blend required in the Denver-metro ozone zone under Colorado Division of Oil and Public Safety rules, though that blend is a modest contributor next to the war.

What it means for buyers

For buyers, the higher-rate environment has bred caution, but Levy and Levine both framed unrest as a source of opportunity. Levy described a lender program he is offering through the end of June on conventional loans: a lender-paid 1-0 buydown that takes a 6.625 percent note down to 5.625 percent for the first 12 months, with the lender covering the cost rather than the buyer or seller. Buyers still have to qualify at the higher note rate, but they do not make that higher payment until the 13th month, which buys a year to watch for a refinance opportunity. The savings, as Kim Monson framed it on air, are real money in a buyer’s pocket. For a household scared off by today’s headline rates, it is a way to get in at a lower payment while there is less competition in the market.

What it means for sellers

On the seller side, preparation is now decisive. Levine, who has spent more than 30 years in the business, said staging has gone from a novelty to an expectation, with buyers shaped by HGTV walking in ready to reward a home that is neutralized, updated and show-ready. She pointed to April metro statistics, noting that where the market might have perceived downward pressure on values, values held strong. Levine said she relisted an affordable brick ranch in Northglenn at $470,000 and is drawing good showing activity even amid the broader slowdown. Levy described a similar dynamic outside Boston, where a friend listed a home at $899,900, drew five offers over a weekend and sold at $960,000. Real estate is localized, both guests stressed, and a home that is priced right, prepared right and in the right place still sells. Levine added the flip side: when rates drop, buyer activity climbs and homes tend to fetch list price or better.

The kitchen-table stakes heading into the midterms

Beyond the closing table, both hosts and guests returned to a political through-line. With the midterm elections approaching, Monson noted that candidates running for office, the elected representatives who will set policy, need to understand that these kitchen-table costs are what voters will carry into the booth. When a family feels the war every time it fills the tank, that pressure reaches every other choice, including the decision to buy or sell a home. The conflict’s economics have moved off the front page and onto household budgets across the front range.