I have probably been asked that question more than a thousand times. Literally. It's the question everyone wants answered. The fact is that no one knows where rates are headed. No one. Yeah, there may be long-term trends over the course of a month or a year, but when you're closing at the end of the month that's not much help, is it? Trying to determine what rates are going to do over the next few weeks or months is a nightmarish prospect.

Most every institutional investor does. It's a guaranteed rate of return for them. But there's a bugaboo when investing in bonds: inflation. Inflation will eat into the value of the bond by reducing the value of the return. A bond will guarantee a certain yield, say, $5,000. If inflation creeps into the picture and prices rise across the board by, say, 10 percent, then that same $5,000 isn't worth what it was when it was first issued. Inflation ate away at the final value.

Sorry, they're not. You can't track mortgage rates against the 10-year or 30-year treasury. While they're both fixed investments, they're not tied to mortgage rates. Trying to tie mortgage rates to either of these rates is like trying to track Wal-Mart stock to the Dow Jones average. You might see some coincidental moves, but there is no direct correlation.

Sure, the Federal Reserve chair and his buddies set interest rates, but they don't set mortgage rates. What the Fed sets is either the Federal Funds rate or the discount rate or both. They provide cheaper or more expensive money to the markets by making money more expensive or less expensive. These two rates that the Fed sets are short-term rates. Very short term, as in overnight.

Your loan officer will have more direct influence on your mortgage rate than the lender will. At major retail banks and national mortgage bankers, loan officers are required to quote a specific rate for a specific product without variance. If a lender says, ''For loans between $300,000 and $417,000 the interest rate will be 7.00 percent with one point'' that's what you'll be quoted.

Lenders set interest rates every business morning as markets open. There are various indexes, but for fixed rate mortgages they're set to a mortgage bond and priced accordingly. A 30-year fixed rate price will be tied to the current 30-year Fannie Mae coupon being traded that day.

Each state regulates and licenses its own loan officers, so there is no national database of complaints. Instead, you need to find out who regulates mortgage loan officers in your state and make the complaint with them. Some states have different regulatory agencies depending on whether the loan officer is licensed as a mortgage broker or mortgage banker.