Mortgage rates have risen about half a percentage point since September of last year.. What does that mean for you if you’re buying a home now or plan to buy one soon?

For starters, don’t panic. When you’re buying a home, the mortgage rate matters, but it shouldn’t monopolize your attention. You shouldn’t focus on the rate and let that scare you into making a hasty decision about buying a house.

The average rate on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is about 4.54%. It averaged 3.99% on Sept. 26, 2017 — meaning it has gone up more than half a percentage point in less than five months.

Mortgage rate fluctuations have been catching home buyers off guard for generations. Here are some things you can do when mortgage rates trend higher:

Lock your mortgage rate – With a mortgage rate lock, the lender promises a defined combo of interest rate and points. If you close the home loan by the specified date, the rate can’t go up. You can use this method after the lender has approved you for a mortgage for a specific house.

Buy “points” to reduce the interest rate – If you have the cash, you can pay for discount points — in effect, prepaying some of the interest in exchange for a lower mortgage rate. One point equals 1% of the loan amount.

Revise your price range – A higher mortgage rate brings higher monthly payments. When you begin your home search, determine a range of interest rates that will still allow you to afford the type of home you want without stretching your budget past the point of reason.

This recent rise in mortgage rates arrived in two stages: The first happened in the weeks after the passage of tax reform in late December. The second happened Feb. 2, 2018, when the January employment report indicated that hourly wages had risen 2.9% compared with 12 months before.

The tax cuts and the wage report were both regarded as inflationary, because when people have more money in their pockets, they tend to spend it, driving up prices. And higher inflation tends to bring higher interest rates for everything, including mortgages.

On top of that, futures traders expect the Federal Reserve to raise short-term interest rates at least two, if not three, times this year, which could exert upward pressure on longterm mortgage rates.

Businesses and governments around the world are ramping up their borrowing. As they compete with one another to borrow money, they bid up interest rates. This upward pressure trickles down to consumers, who end up paying higher interest rates for everything from credit cards to mortgages.

Talk to any housing economist about mortgage rates, and you’ll hear that rates have been abnormally low in the decade since the housing crash.

The rates we’re looking at today are still, by any measure, pretty low. So it’s basically the economy getting back closer to normal.